


Interludes

by incoherent_icarus_works



Category: The Owl House (Cartoon)
Genre: Angst, Canon Compliant, Character Study, Dysfunctional Family, Eventual Amity Blight/Luz Noceda, F/F, I just love amity okay shes got so many layers to her
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-01-06
Updated: 2021-02-21
Packaged: 2021-03-16 11:53:36
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 30,717
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28581549
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/incoherent_icarus_works/pseuds/incoherent_icarus_works
Summary: Amity knew about magic better than most people expected her to. It had taken her a while to settle on which track to follow. She had flamed out of fire magic, been bitten by beast keeping and just couldn't see through the fog of oracle nonsense. When she had finally taken to abomination magic, it just felt right. Something clicked for her when she summoned these disgusting beings, and that day she made a realization.She shakily rose to her feet and steadied her breathing. Reaching back for a trickle of the power to make one last circle of light."Abomination. Rise."---Interludes is a series of scenes from between the canon episodes, exploring Amity's point-of-view, her connection to abomination magic, and how she transforms from a deeply troubled and insecure mean girl into the dorky gay disaster we all know and love.
Relationships: Amity Blight & Edric Blight & Emira Blight, Amity Blight & Luz Noceda, Amity Blight/Luz Noceda
Comments: 50
Kudos: 123





	1. Crushing Expectations (Between Episodes 1.3 and 1.5)

Whenever she needed to blow off some steam, Amity Blight took to the woods. While most wild locales on the Boiling Isles ranged from mildly dangerous to outright deadly, the woods surrounding the Blight Manor were relatively tame. Her parents had diligently researched the purchase of the manor to align with Blight family standards: well-maintained grounds, upscale location, opulent home, and above all else, plenty expensive to intimidate their peers. Expensive enough to have a magical barrier erected to keep out most of the terrifying flora and fauna in the rest of the forest, like the weird creatures that gravitated towards that strange Owl Shack.

As she left the soft glow of the manor's lantern light and walked into her woods, she thought of the Owl Shack with a deep pit in her stomach. Earlier that week, that stupid human girl had cost her the Top Student badge she had worked for _years_ to get at Hexide. Months of studying, training, and cracking books at the library, completely down the drain. Her parents hadn't been happy about that. In fact, they were livid. Which was why she had found herself tugging on her boots earlier, setting out to escape her house and venture into the woods. 

Amity ducked under tree branches and set her eyes down onto the small path she had worn into the grass over time. She came out here more and more frequently the older she got. The enormous expectations set on her by her parents following the successes of Ed and Emira just created so much pressure. She couldn't even sneeze at home without being sneered at by the twins or getting a disapproving look from her father. It wasn't really their fault, she knew, she had a tendency to blow it at crucial moments. The Grudgby championships two years ago, this past week with the Abomination project that she should've handily beat everyone at. Amity took a deep breath as she approached her destination, and felt that familiar dread deep in her bones. She was always one mistake away from being the screw-up her family feared she could be. Well, this time she'd show them. She'd show them all. Covention was tomorrow and she would impress her mentor, her classmates, the emperor, even her parents. Despite being a screw-up.

The trees opened up around her to a small clearing, her clearing. The familiar sounds of the one-eyed bats screeching overhead and the low hum of the blood-sucking fireflies calmed her nerves for a moment. For a second, that dread she always felt gave way to a tranquil calm that escaped her so much these days. She shook her head quickly, dispelling the feeling. Right now she needed that dread, that emotional fuel. She glanced around the treeline, making sure one of the twins hadn't followed her, trying to sabotage her training. Nobody was there save for the towering pine trees, beckoning her to begin.

Amity closed her eyes, and focused on that dread she felt, constantly humming in the back of her mind. Amity understood magic better than most people expected her to. She knew magical power was one part talent, and another, larger part disposition. Ed and Emira were fantastic illusionists because they reveled in deflection, misinformation, and manipulation. Boscha was a decent potion brewer because she loved concocting schemes and mixing the right words and inflection to make the perfect insult. Skara was flashy and demanded attention, perfect for the Bard track. Hell, even Willow was suited for her magic. She was gentle and nurturing, both weak characteristics, but well matched in plant magic.

Amity felt that dread creep out of her mind and into her body, running through her veins like icy blood and pooling at her fingertips. She felt the power of the island pooling in her stomach, demanding to be released. Her eyes flashed open and in a flurry, she used both hands to draw a rapid series of small circles in the air. 

"Abominations! Rise!" 

The power flowed from her stomach to her fingers which burst alight. The ground around her bubbled and suddenly half a dozen purple, dripping, featureless abominations clawed their way to the surface. 

"Abominations! Seize!" She pointed at a boulder along the treeline and felt the power ripple out of her again, this time urging her creations towards the rock. She held onto her dread but allowed another emotion to the forefront of her mind: control and focus. She poured more of her energy into her fingers and her abominations sprinted to the rock with an alarming speed, unusual for the lumbering, unwieldy abominations that many witches her age usually produced.

"Abominations! Crush!" The abominations crowded around the boulder and she felt more than saw them begin to pressure the rock in their strange grasp. She heard a faint crack from the rock but it held steady. Again, she reached into herself and pulled on both her dread and focus to usher forth more magic. She felt the raw power flood her senses once again and slowly tightened her outstretched hand into a fist. She repeated herself, and was surprised to hear a her voice dripping with an uncharacteristic venom: "Abominations. Crush."

Again, she felt rather than saw the pressure her monsters were applying to the boulder and slowly pressed harder and harder with her mind, imagining all the expectations of her parents and the taunts of her siblings being condensed into a white hot ball at the center of the rock. She felt her muscles strain and her senses scream with the overwhelming task she set them to. She heard more cracks fill the air as she reached for even more power. She put her teacher's admonishments of her in that ball, her parent's disapproving looks, every A- she ever got at school, even the stupid human girl who had sabotaged her earlier that week. Put her in there too, she'd prove them all wrong. Her focus gave way to rage and she screamed, releasing more power than she had ever held in herself before. Finally, the rock relented and exploded, sending shards of rock and powdered gravel flying into the air. Amity collapsed to her knees in the clearing, her muscles trembling and her breath ragged from the exertion. Her abominations melted into puddles around the crumbling remains of the boulder.

Yeah, Amity knew about magic better than most people expected her to. It had taken her a while to settle on which track to follow. She had flamed out of fire magic, been bitten by beast keeping and just couldn't see through the fog of oracle nonsense. When she had finally taken to abomination magic, it just felt right. Something clicked for her when she summoned these disgusting beings, and that day she made a realization. 

She shakily rose to her feet and steadied her breathing. Reaching back for a trickle of the power to make one last circle of light. 

"Abomination. Rise."

The ground bubbled again but this time, her creation was smaller, slimmer. It rose from the ground and shifted its usually hulking form into a vaguely person-shaped figure. Amity began to walk around her shifting creation with her hands clasped behind her back in a familiar posture. 

She cleared her throat and began to speak in a rough imitation of her Father's voice. 

"Never show weakness, Amity. Never give anyone an edge, not even your friends. They could easily turn against someone like you. Project power at every moment. You are a Blight! You have a name, a reputation to uphold!"

With every word, her abomination took more and more form. First, the long legs of ex-Grudgeby player, then the boots of a Hexide student, next the loose casual shirt of a fashionable young witch.

"Above all else, remember: Never. Show. Mercy."

At the final words, the transformation was complete. The shapeless purple head sculpted itself to have pointy ears, a strong jaw, and a distinctive tiny ponytail. Amity circled back to the front of her creation and stared at a perfect recreation of her own face. 

The reason Amity was so damn good at Abomination magic, was because she was one.

She stayed like that a long time, staring back at herself. She thought of that silly human again, imitating an abomination. Cracking jokes, eating sandwiches, hanging out with her friends. Amity had known something was amiss right away. Abominations have no time for jokes. Abominations don't need to eat. And abominations don't have any friends. They had power. They had strength. They had drive. They never showed weakness, they never let anyone in. And above all else, they never showed mercy.

Not even to themselves.

Amity waved her hand and let go of the power. She looked away as her reflection melted into a puddle of goo in the middle of the clearing before her. Tears came to her eyes as she felt the focus and thrill of practicing magic dissipate, leaving only that terrible dread. She stared up at the sky above her and saw the moon hanging low in the night with its usual eclipse bringing a small cornea of moonlight down to the Isles. She wanted to be free of all these stupid expectations, all this pressure, but she knew she didn't have any other option. She was an abomination. A Blight. She was destined for the Emperor's coven. That meant her life would be relentless toil, pushing herself each and every day to strive for the lofty goals set up for her over a decade ago. The goals she now called her own. 

She released a breath she didn't realize she had been holding. And brought her gaze back down to the ground to her little sanctuary in the woods. The shards of the boulder had butchered the trees around it and there was a tiny steaming crater where she had dismissed her last abomination. She sighed. Well, she could clean up the mess after the Covention tomorrow. She was ready to face her mentor and prove she had a spot in her coven. She had the talent, she had the disposition. And she definitely had the motivation. Failure was not an option. Amity _would_ succeed. 

She couldn't even think about the alternative.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I've had this scene in my head for a few days and just had to write it out. I'll continue this through season 1 as I keep getting ideas. I just love the idea of Amity putting way too much pressure on herself and slowly but surely realizing that Luz's carefree demeanor isn't weakness, just a different and healthier kind of strength. The show gives us plenty of scenes for hints and speculation of where Amity's head is at throughout the season, but I wanted to do a bit of a deeper dive into the kind of emotional grappling that Amity has to do to completely turn around her character like she did. WE LOVE A GREAT, GAY REDEMPTION ARC LADS!!!


	2. The Silence is Deafening (Between Episodes 1.5 and 1.7)

Amity just felt numb. She'd been brooding for days, kicking herself over that stupid duel at Covention. At the time, it had seemed like the perfect opportunity. Stick it to the human girl, impress her mentor, and gain renown as a powerful witch all in one day. The perfect plan, efficient, elegant, and suitably ruthless. Classic Blight family extracurricular activity. But it had all gone so wrong, so fast.

When she had gotten home that night, somehow Mother and Father had already found out about the duel. Amity had trudged back to the mansion, images of tiny light orbs dancing in her retinas, making her feel slightly better about how much of a disaster the day had been. But as soon as she stepped through the door, she knew something was wrong.

The Blight manor was many things. It was organized, it was well-decorated, and it was spacious; full of room after room for her family to tuck themselves away and scheme ambitiously, or hide discreetly. One thing it never was, though, is quiet. There was always the slight clatter of Mother brewing potions, or Father scratching away at a work scroll next to the crackling fireplace, or even the soft bickering of the twins that descended down the stairs from their conjoined rooms. It was never loud or cacophonous, but always sounded like a well-loved workshop. The dull clatter of _someone_ working on _something_ was ever-present. Father insisted upon it. 

"We can rest when we're dead. For the moment, we need to work. No child of mine will be lazing around, doing nothing on a Saturday. There is always something to be improved upon, a skill to be honed!" Father had told her years ago, when she just wanted to sleep in and watch silly shows on her family's crystal ball.

And so, the Blight Manor always sounded like a dull, dignified roar. Someone, somewhere was working on something. At all times. Amity was grateful for it, it meant she had a modicum of privacy. Everyone else was so focused on their own projects, they could overlook the quiet turning of pages in Amity's room, tearing through the new Azura book. Or the faint scratching of her quill on note paper, drawing herself in some far-flung fantasy land. Sound meant distraction, silence meant trouble.

Amity had been greeted to a dead silent house that night. She had hovered in the doorway, straining her ears to figure out if anyone was home. She heard the cough of her father in the sitting room and cursed quietly to herself. As soon as she stepped through the mudroom into the hallway, he would ask about the duel. And she would have to tell him the truth because inevitably he'd find out from his friends at work tomorrow. 

Amity tugged off her boots and placed them carefully into the line of shoes by the coatrack and padded into the spotless entryway in the mandatory socked feet. Dirt was a sign of carelessness, ineptitude. She walked through the doorway of the sitting room and hesitated. Her father was in his chair by the fire, feet up on the footrest reading a newspaper and smoking his pipe. He was dressed in the fine jerkin and and trousers of the diplomat's office, but his usually immaculately combed brown hair was slightly ruffled. His brows were furrowed, as if he were working on a particularly difficult document or spell. Amity braced herself and sucked in a breath before speaking. 

"Hi Father, I'm back from Covention," she said in her best I-am-a-perfect-and-diligent-daughter-please-don't-ground-me voice. 

Her father didn't respond.

"Um, I met with Lilith to discuss my progress. She said my magic was coming along nicely."

Her father didn't respond.

"I um. I got into a duel."

Her father raised his pipe to his lips and took a long drag on the pungent leaves.

Amity felt her vision begin to wobble as unbidden tears welled up into her eyes. She trained her gaze on the floor and took another deep breath before continuing. "I think it was a draw. We were both tricked by our mentors. I. I let you down."

Her father grunted at that.

"Is there. Um. Anything you want to ... say?" Amity asked hesitatingly, bringing her gaze off the floor and studying her father's body language. She could have cut the tension in the room with a knife. He was obviously pissed. But what was he waiting for?

Her father turned the page of the newspaper and shifted in his seat, ignoring her comment entirely.

"Okay. I'll be in my room I guess." Amity said, thoroughly defeated. 

She backed out of the study and turned to go up the stairs and saw her Mother through the hallway. She was in the kitchen, standing over a steaming cauldron with a book levitating before her and potion ingredients placed neatly on the countertop. Amity rested a hand on the railing by the stairs and waved weakly to her Mother.

"I'm back from Covention, Mother." She called down the hallway. 

Her mother looked away from the book and locked eyes with Amity. There was a stern chill in her gaze as she wordlessly and slowly shook her head. The meaning was clear. Displeasure. Disapproval. Disappointment. 

Amity looked away first and rushed up the stairs, unable to keep her tears inside any longer.

\---

Amity had been given the silent treatment for three days now. She didn't necessarily mind it anymore, frankly it beat being yelled at by a long shot and being ignored gave her a pleasant amount of autonomy around the house. Not that she had been enjoying it much, she spent most of the weekend in her room, thinking over the events of the Covention. How had she been that stupid? She had let Lilith trick her, use her as a pawn in some weird revenge cycle those sisters were locked into. Even though it was her idea to challenge Luz, and it was her grudge that she was acting on, still some stupid adult had found a reason to twist their way into it. Couldn't she have anything just for herself? Just once?

She didn't want to but she found her mind drifting back to duel itself, conjuring that huge abomination while hopped up on the Construction Coven's glyph. It was exhilarating. She remembered reaching for power like she was casting a normal spell and being buffeted by a torrent of raw magic. Her abomination had grown to twice the size of anything she had created before, and she had felt it respond quickly and easily to her lightest mental suggestion. It was exciting, but terrifying at the same time. She remembered that in that moment her anxiety and dread of screwing up had finally faded into the background, all she felt was .. something warmer. Pride? She had certainly been proud of herself, and excited by the fight but no. What was that overwhelming emotion?

Her memory fuzzed as the duel had gone on, that glyph had really packed a punch. Whatever that warm feeling was had quickly been replaced by the thrill of competition and the incredible magic swirling around her. She remembered the strange lumps on the ground and her growing suspicions of the other girl when she ran and yelped as magical traps went off around her seemingly at random. When she had finally revealed Luz as a cheater she was barely thinking straight. The magic was overwhelming her usual tight control of herself and the slow burn of her emotions to power her spells. She was feeling all of her thoughts and feelings burn all at once in a huge firestorm of rage and competitive fervor. She had to win. She _had_ to crush Luz, defeat her so thoroughly she could never threaten her status ever again.

Then that Owl Woman had torn the glyph from her neck. All at once, that torrent of power had been ripped from her and she felt like all the muscles in her body had fallen asleep at once. She had nearly fallen over, but kept upright out of the sheer shock of it. That swirling nexus of magic, gone in an instant. Replaced by apathy, nothingness, with just the cold edge of her constant anxiety for company. She remembered running out of the coliseum, she remembered huddling on the floor off to the side of the booths. She was breathing hard, fighting for something, anything to ground her.

And then there was Luz. 

Amity had lashed out. Hard. There had been none of the Blight decorum left in her, only the terror and rage of thinking she had lost everything all at once. But Luz didn't fight back, she had apologized. And then she showed her that spell. That dumb little light glyph. A simple thing they taught in the baby class at Hexside, but the silent pride in the eyes of the other girl had spoken to the labor that went into learning it. The darkness pressing in on her from all sides had lightened as she stared at the tiny ball of light, and the girl who had conjured it. She felt a whisper of that same feeling she felt at first in the coliseum. Wonder. Curiosity. Passion. The same feelings she saw reflected in Luz's quiet apology. The same feeling she had when she cast her first light spell. Years of magical training and she had never noticed the slow wane of her passion and the growth of her anxiety. She never cast a spell and felt that same wonder anymore, not like the sheer fascination and appreciation she had seen in Luz's eyes at that moment. Only fear, dread, and the panic of being on the cusp of failure.

She remembered unraveling that crazy oath she had conjured up, and then walking away, throwing one more insult over her shoulder out of spite.

"Humans have no magical ability. But I doubt that'll stop you."

She had been kicking herself for days over that. In her darkest moment, this girl had reached out to her and made her feel just a little bit better. Even if it probably only was because she made an excellent verbal punching bag. Amity felt no affection for this girl. None whatsoever. But still what did that say about her? Sure she hated the human's guts. Every time she got near Amity, Amity wound up in deeper trouble. And the human just wouldn't stop _bugging_ her whenever they crossed paths. But when did everything get so twisted that she couldn't show kindness to someone who tried to help her? 

Amity heard a soft triple knock at the door. She grabbed a pillow and pulled it over her head, groaning. Emira's knock. She really didn't want to deal with her older sister right now. 

"Leave me alone. I'm busy." Amity said, muffled through the pillow.

"No, baby sister, you're brooding," said Emira with her usual know-it-all attitude. "Let me in, I have a proposition for you."

Amity rolled her eyes. Emira's propositions usually involved Amity doing extra chores for dumb reasons.

"No, I'm not going to do your laundry because it will put me more 'in tune with the Island's magical vibez.'" Amity said, wiggling her fingers in the air and doing a funny voice for the last part. It was an exact quote if she remembered it correctly.

"Alright smarty-pants, it's not about laundry. It's about how we can get Mom and Dad to start talking to you again."

Amity sat up. While this particular punishment wasn't terrible, it wasn't ideal either. Amity was effectively grounded with no end in sight. She couldn't ask her parents permission to leave and she really didn't want to find out what would happen if she snuck out without telling them. She was usually suspicious of the twins as a general rule, but when it came to working their parents, they definitely had a few years advantage and a winning track record.

"Ugh. Okay fine." Amity said, swinging her legs off the bed and walking over to open the door. She grabbed the handle and swung it open to reveal not only Emira leaning in the doorframe but Edric too.

"I see we're using the royal we here, huh Em?" Amity said, raising her eyebrow at Ed.

"Hey Mittens," Ed said in a singsong-y voice, "We figured you might be interested in a little jailbreak."

"I'm listening." Amity said. She was still suspicious, but she didn't really have any other options.

"You know how Mom and Dad are so proud of us for getting the highest score on the Hexside Annual Arcana Exam?" asked Em.

"Yes." Amity replied in a flat tone. "You literally never shut up about it."

"Well what if we told them that we would take you to the library tomorrow to help you study up to beat it?" Ed added, wiggling his eyebrows.

"This would help me, how exactly?" Amity asked, getting annoyed.

"Well for one, it would show you're getting back on the ol' Blight family achievement horse after getting beaten so thoroughly by a human of all people," said Ed.

Emira continued his thought, "And for two, you know how happy it makes Mom that you read to little kids and study for hours on end there. Its very becoming of a young witch your age to 'engage with the community' and 'help those who are lesser than us bless-ed Blights.'" She said the last part in a ridiculous imitation of their mother's voice, complete with exaggerated snooty accent and finger wagging. 

Amity couldn't help but snort at that, but she hesitated. Ed and Emira might be gifted witches, but they got their accolades on raw talent and charisma alone, not through studying. The library trip was of no benefit to them. Whats their angle? They never gave out this kind of help without wanting something in return. 

"Whats the catch?" Amity asked, eyeing her siblings.

"Oh no catch," said Emira, "We just wanted to help you out of a tough spot. After all, what are siblings for?"

Amity narrowed her eyes at her older sister."This is some kind of revenge plot for when I told Mother you cut class last week, isn't it?" said Amity.

"Water under the bridge," said Ed, waving his hand. "Look, we know how much it sucks to be on the receiving end of the silent treatment. Happened to us when we planted that stink bomb in Principal Bump's office."

"Yeah, Mom didn't talk to us for two days," Emira chimed in, then rubbed her chin thoughtfully, "Then again, Dad did let us off the hook after that. Said it was an 'industrious use of potion brewing and illusion magic' so it wasn't that big of a deal." 

Amity rolled her eyes. "Yeah I'd say I'm in 'big deal territory' here."

Ed put a hand on her shoulder. "Don't sweat it. We'll take care of everything, all you have to do is go to the library with us tomorrow, and we'll smooth things over with Mom."

"That's it?" asked Amity.

"Thats it. We feel for you, Mittens. We really do," Emira said insincerely, "Just let us work our magic." She winked at Amity and then leaned out of the doorframe and began to stride down the stairs, Ed following on her heels.

Amity stared at their backs as they retreated downstairs to talk to their parents. She wasn't entirely sure what just happened, she hadn't actually even agreed to their plan. But she was certain of one thing. There would be a catch. There always was when they were nice to her like this. She'd just have to play along and figure out what it was before they could pull the rug out from under her again.

She closed her door and flopped back down onto her bed with a sigh. Her mind circled back to what she had been thinking about before the twins interrupted her; how she could only fling insults at Luz after she had been so kind and vulnerable.

When had these things gotten so twisted, indeed.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Edric and Emira never learned to suppress the Cain instinct and it really shows.


	3. Disfigurements of Imagination (Between 1.7 and 1.12)

Amity walked a little ways past the Bonesborough Branch Library, outside of the view of the goofy human on the front footsteps. As soon as she was out of sight, she closed her eyes and tipped her head back, taking a deep breath of the crisp, early morning air and exhaling slowly, savoring the refreshing cold. She was exhausted, slightly bruised, and probably more than a little traumatized from seeing a beloved childhood character turn into a terrifying monster, but overall, she was pretty happy. 

Yesterday, she had been decidedly _un_ happy. Actually, she had been pissed. Not only had Ed and Emira betrayed her as anticipated, but somehow they had roped Luz in on it too. Amity had been so angry she could barely see straight. She nearly passed out. She had wanted to scream when she found Luz and the twins in her hideaway. She had fully expected this kind of subterfuge from Ed and Emira. Frankly, she was surprised she had kept the place a secret from them for so long. But Luz? The girl she had been trying to figure out how to apologize to all weekend? The one who had shown her that light glyph; something so small, but so precious? Something in Amity had shattered. Her whole perspective had tilted.

Amity winced inwardly as she walked the largely empty streets of the marketplace, remembering her tortured line of thinking from that moment: Luz was nothing but trouble. She followed Amity around, constantly embarrassing her, sabotaging her, invading her space. Whenever she showed up, things got worse by an astronomical degree. First her social life, then her career ambitions, and now even her stupid attempt to just get her parents to acknowledge she existed again. Luz was cruel, ruthless, relentless. Luz was just like the twins. She was just like her parents. She was just like Amity. 

An Abomination. A bully.

Amity had tried to run away at that point, her thoughts swirling in a terrible storm around her. That anxiety and self-doubt that always lurked beneath the surface had come raging to the forefront. Screaming, clawing at her. Of course Luz was a bully. There was always an angle, always a price to pay for letting her guard down. 

She had only gotten so far before that girl's insane ability to warp reality had dropped a literal monster on their heads. Through the fight, Amity had tried to stay mad at Luz. But in the heat of the moment, fighting for their lives against a disfigurement of her imagination, she just couldn't. Amity finally spent more than thirty uninterrupted seconds with Luz, and couldn't help but see her for what she was: A girl who thought quick on her feet, and never anticipated her next move. A girl who took the time to crack jokes in a life-or-death situation. A girl who fought for her in that cheap Azura knockoff costume. The one who had come back to help her. The one who saved her.

Amity laughed out loud as she picked her way to the center of the marketplace, her feet carrying her forward while her mind was a million miles away. Who had she been kidding? Luz didn't have a mean bone in her body. She was barely capable of hurting a demonic Odabin intentionally, much less Amity. Luz didn't plan out elaborate sabotage schemes like the twins. She simply ran head first into whatever she found herself in. She was all guts, intuition, and blind hope. She was like that tiny ball of light, glowing bright and flying relentlessly upward into the sky, struggling against the harsh realities of gravity. Not exactly the kind of person who would repeatedly try to ruin her life. But definitely the kind of person who could catastrophically screw up, and then desperately try to make things right again.

Amity smiled softly to herself as she picked her way through a familiar alley in the back of the market. Luz was alright. Maybe even better than alright. She made her laugh, she let her borrow an Azura book, and she had saved her from a life of two dimensional tea parties with a monster. That was more than her current friends were doing for her. Like how Boscha and Skaara had hijacked her Penstagram during the midnight conjuring to throw shade at humans, probably just Luz. Amity winced again. Man, she had a lot to apologize for. 

So yeah, despite the harrowing events of the evening, Amity was pretty happy. She and Luz both had a long way to go before they made up for their mutual misunderstandings. But it seemed like they were on the same page. It was a start. A start of what, Amity wasn't sure. But it made her feel warm and light in a way she hadn't felt in a while now. 

That freaked her out, if she was being honest. She hadn't really had a friend since - 

"Hey Amity! Wow you look like hell." yelled a familiar voice, interrupting her thought.

Amity stopped dead in her tracks, and finally looked up, snapped out of her reverie. She was outside of the Witch's Brew coffee stall, her friend group's favorite haunt. She must have walked here out of habit and a subconscious need for caffeine. Right outside the red and black striped awning and next to a huge canister of Hazlenut Horrors Morning Potion, Boscha was standing there with a steaming to-go mug and a smirk in her eye.

Amity stiffened. And then forced herself to relax, to adopt that cool I-couldn't-care-less persona she had honed over the past five years. She gave Boscha a slight wave and then walked over and leaned against the stall next to her.

"Wow, thanks for the compliment, Boscha. What are you doing here this early?" Amity asked, trying not to let the other girl get under her skin.

"I could ask you the same question. You barely look like you've slept." Boscha replied, cocking her head and looking her up and down. "In fact, those are the same leggings you wore yesterday, Blight. What did you get up to during the Wailing Star, then?"

Amity felt sweat begin to trickle down the back of her neck. If Boscha found out she had been in the library with Luz all night, her social life was over. Boscha definitely had it out for the human, even more so than Amity had been after that disastrous abomination test. Something about a rat race and some flying shoes? Amity had stopped trying to understand what the hell her best friend had meant about a week ago. It just wasn't worth the effort or opening herself up to criticism. 

Amity tried to keep her cool and rolled her eyes. "I wear the same thing every day Boscha. We go to a private school, we have uniforms. But you're not wrong." Amity said, examining her nails and feigning nonchalance, "I was pulling an all-nighter at the library. Wanted to try out some new magic while the Wailing Star was out." 

Boscha raised an eyebrow. Amity tightened her jaw. Was she going to buy it?

"New magic huh? Well let's see it." Boscha replied. Amity nearly choked. 

"See what?" She asked, trying to buy some time.

"The new magic! If you were working on it all night, it must be good, right?" Boscha asked batting her eyelashes in a way that was anything but innocent. 

Amity took her hands and smoothed out her hair, even though she knew it was immaculate. "Right, new magic. Yeah, I can show it to you." 

She stepped away from the stall and tried not to panic. New magic? She didn't have any new magic! She was locked in her room all weekend and spent all last night fighting a monster, she hadn't had time to study at all. Maybe something old, but that Boscha hadn't seen before? 

With that thought, Amity felt the tension fall away from her body, her confidence returning. She knew what to do. 

"Abomination. Rise." She said in a clear, cold voice. She held out her arm and lazily drew a circle in the air, deliberately unfocusing her thoughts and emotions. She wanted to be a blank slate, as empty and spent as she had been after blowing up that boulder last week.

She closed her eyes and felt the amorphous mass of abomination magic rise from the earth in front of her. She reached out with her mind through the connection of the circle and forced it into a vaguely human shape. She pulled on her own memories and began muttering under her breath in a high, perpetually annoyed voice:

"Ew, you used to hang out with that loser, Willow? Ugh thats so like you, weirdo. Amity, always going off on your own. You think you're too cool for me? Or maybe you're just afraid I'll leave you alone first?"

Amity felt a vengeful smile curl across her mouth as she mentally molded her abomination to Boscha's form. That would knock her down a notch or two.

"AHAHAHA! What is that pitiful freakshow?" Boscha yelled aloud, barely containing her laughter.

Amity's eyes snapped open and was greeted to the sight of a tiny melting slag pile with three eyes and a dilapidated up-do. Amity felt her heart fall out of her chest and into her stomach. Why hadn't it worked?

Boscha walked over to her, still chuckling and slung a decidedly unfriendly arm around her shoulders. 

"Well, Amity. I'd say you should go back inside and hit the books again. Whatever you were shooting for, it definitely missed the mark."

Amity gaped as her tiny creation bubbled and fizzed, losing what little definition it had.

"Wait! I can do it! Just let me - Abomination! Rise!" This time she made a big circle in the air, and focused with her whole mind. She wasn't going for her fancy sculptures now, just a run-of-the-mill monster. 

Again, purple goo oozed up from the ground but refused to take shape, simply steaming and bubbling pathetically before dissolving back into the dirt. 

"What the hell!" Amity yelled. She kicked the spot where the abomination had been as Boscha laughed out loud again. 

"Shut up! My magic isn't working, whats happening to me?" Amity said, panic creeping into her voice. Boscha removed her arm from her shoulders and walked in front of Amity, looking her dead in the eye.

"Maybe you've gone soft, Blight." she said, using a finger to tilt Amity's chin up as if she were examining her. Amity jerked her face back and slapped her hand away. 

"What are you doing?" Amity spat.

"You look different today, Blight." said Boscha, tilting her head curiously. "At first, I thought it was the sleep loss but no, you look weird. Some of that signature venom is gone." Boscha narrowed her eyes. "What were you really doing in that library, huh?"

Amity jerked away again, terrified of whatever her friend thought she was reading into. "Nothing! Studying! I gotta go!" Amity stumbled backwards and ran away back into the marketplace, thoroughly panicking now. When was the last time she used magic? When she was fighting Odabin maybe? But no, she had followed Luz's lead and ran into him with a book cart, like an idiot. When then? Maybe the day before, when she was stuck inside? Or was the last time really at Covention? Was it the construction glyph that killed her magic? Wait, no. Because she had undone the oath with Luz and that had worked perfectly. 

What had changed between Covention and now? What the hell was going on?

Again, her feet had carried her somewhere without her realizing it, and she found herself outside her own house. She yanked the door open, threw off her shoes and got halfway up the stairs before she heard her mother call for her.

"Amity, darling? Are you home from the library?"

Amity nearly kicked the stair she was on. Now her mother starts to talk to her again? Right now?

"Yes, Mother! I'll be in my room if you need me!" she called, resuming her anxious climb up the staircase.

"Alright, dear. I think your siblings wanted a word with you, though," her Mother called after her.

Amity rounded the landing, and ran past the twins' open doors to her own room. She yanked the door open and then slammed it closed behind her in one fluid motion, collapsing against the cold wood and sinking to her knees. Without her magic she was doomed. Her magic was her _life_. It was her ticket to the Emperor's Coven, it was what made her untouchable at school, it was the whole foundation of her being. It was the only thing keeping her parent's disappointment at bay. What could she do if she couldn't do _magic_?

"Hey Amity! Wow you look like hell." Emira said, spontaneously appearing out of thin air, sitting atop Amity's bed. 

Amity's jaw dropped. She picked up a book from beside her desk and chucked it at her sister.

"Why do people keep saying that to me today?! And how did you get in here!? What's your problem?! Trying to humiliate me at the library isn't enough for you?" Amity said, nearly in hysterics at this point.

"Woah, calm down baby sister. Whats wrong, what happened?" Emira said, dropping her cool facade and letting a hint of concern into her voice. Amity must look pretty bad for Em to sound like she actually cared for once.

"Why do you care?" Amity asked, "All you want to do is see me fail! You acted like you were helping me with the library trip, but all you wanted was petty revenge!"

Ed popped into existence right next to her, leaning on the wall next to the door. "Well actually," he said "We did genuinely want to get you out of trouble with Mom and Dad. They can be pretty brutal with the silent treatment and general neglect, honestly."

Amity picked up a different book and started whacking Ed in the leg with it.

"How." Whack. "Are." Whack. "You two." Whack. "DOING THAT??" WHACK. Amity felt like she was going to LOSE HER MIND.

"OW!" Ed whined, and finally caught Amity mid-swing. "They're invisibility spells! Gods! What's gotten into you?"

"WHY ARE YOU TWO INVISIBLE IN MY ROOM??" Amity yelled.

"WELL, WE AREN'T INVISIBLE ANYMORE!!" yelled Ed and Emira in unison.

"CHILDREN! Pipe down up there! Your father is in an important meeting on his crystal ball!" Mother yelled from down below.

Immediately Amity and the twins froze. Emira called out "Sorry, Mom!" much quieter than they had all been yelling.

Amity took a deep breath. "What do you to want?" she said in a voice like a low growl. She did NOT need this right now. 

Emira spread her hands open in an honest gesture, "Look, we wanted to apologize. We took it too far last night, and we're sorry."

"Yeah," Ed chimed in, "We got a little too caught up in the moment, your friend was way too fun to string along, and we got carried away."

Amity narrowed her eyes at her siblings, searching their faces. For once, they seemed honest. But something else was there. There was always an angle, a Blight never gave anything away for free, not even when it was deserved. 

Amity looked at Ed and raised her eyebrow. "I don't buy it."

"Okay, maybe we also don't want you to tell Mom and Dad because they caught us goblin tipping last night and we're already in trouble." Ed admitted.

"Edric! You weren't supposed to tell her right away!" said Emira, obviously exasperated.

"What? She knows us too well, she was just gonna figure it out eventually," Ed mumbled.

"I don't care if you're in trouble, and I don't care if you're sorry, just get out of my room and LEAVE ME ALONE!" said Amity, unable to keep the anger and volume from creeping into her voice again.

"Wait!" said Emira, "We could help you? Whatever you're dealing with, we'll help you if you just don't tell Mom about the library."

Amity hesitated. Ed and Emira were the two most talented witches she knew. Besides herself, of course. They were the ones who had taught her most of the advanced magic she knew, and they were with her at the library last night. They also knew how much danger she was in if their parents figured out she couldn't summon more than a pile of purple slag. They would definitely use that against her if they could, but this time she _also_ had leverage.

"Fine. If you help me, I won't tell Mother or Father about the library. But on one condition." Amity said.

"Name it." replied Ed.

"You can't tell them I've lost my magic." Amity replied, her voice shrinking as she said the fact aloud.

"You what?!" said Ed incredulously. Emira just stayed silent as the color drained from her face.

"I know, its bad. But please, I don't know what to do. It was fine after Covention and before the library, but now all I can do," Amity made a little circle in the air and tried to summon another abomination, "is... well this." Again, a tiny pile of goo rose up from the floorboards and steamed pitifully on the ground.

"Thats bad. Thats _really_ bad," said Ed.

"Wait, and you said this stopped working after the Wailing Star?" asked Em.

"Yeah, after you two left, Luz and I had to fight a disfigured Odabin who tried to sew us into books." Amity said, starting to panic again. It was _not_ a good sign that the twins were stumped by this already. "We finally defeated him together after I rammed him with a book cart, but I didn't use magic the whole time and then I tried to make an Abomination in front of Boscha later and it failed miserably and I have no idea what's going on!" 

"Wait. It only stopped working _after_ you and Luz fought Odabin?" asked Emira, slowly.

"Yeah, maybe?" said Amity, "I'm really not sure."

"And it stopped when you were trying to show off in front of _Boscha_?" asked Ed, glancing back at Emira.

"Yes? What are you two getting at?" asked Amity, looking between the two of them.

The twins shared a grin. 

"Theres only one explanation, baby sister," began Emira.

"You, Mittens," finished Ed, "Have a crush."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Will the twins learn to suppress the Cain instinct? Will Amity ever become emotionally self-aware? What's the deal with Boscha, that head tip was a little flirty, hm? AMITY'S MAGIC IS GONE??? TUNE IN NEXT WEEK TO FIND OUT WHAT HAPPENS IN: "This started as an angst fic and now I'm too invested"


	4. Parallel Ultimatums (Still Between 1.7 and 1.12)

After pummeling her siblings with books for a third time, Amity managed to get the general gist of the situation out of them. She did not have a _crush_. She was experiencing something called an "arcane source disruption" which was when the core power of a witch's magic started acting... weird. As she had observed on her own, many witches had personal connections to their schools of magic, thinking of them as an extension of their own personalities and beliefs. According to several dusty tomes that Emira surprisingly had in her possession, whenever their sense of self was shaken or altered, some witches who particularly depended on their emotional state for magic would experience their powers waning or acting unpredictably. As the twins had slowly filled her in on all this, Amity had realized with a shock that her emotional method of spell casting was considered largely atypical. 

They had all migrated to Emira's room, where she had showed Amity those few books on magical casting and source theory. At the time, Amity had immediately dove into them. Now, though, she rubbed her eyes and tiredly lifted her head up from the tome she had cracked open. Usually, this was her element. Deciphering old magical texts was a skill she had needed to cultivate to get ahead of her peers. There was more than one time she remembered impressing a teacher with a small nugget of esoterica she had gleaned from the footnote of a book the size of her own head. But today, she was too tired and frustrated to put forth the effort. She had been up for over 30 hours, fought a demonic children's cartoon, and now she was dealing with ancient arcane theory because apparently she was too _weak_ to cast magic properly. It really was not her day.

She turned to the twins who were fiddling with an old training wand, trying to get it working again. Ed had stripped open the inner workings of the wand and was reconnecting some old wires, while Emira was continuously drawing tiny magic circles, attempting to charge the thing's exhausted battery.

Amity found herself smiling, despite her fatigue. She had to admit, the support she was getting from her older siblings was ... unexpected. Usually everything from them came with a price tag or a hidden motive. However, it seems like the thought of their parent's wrath put them on the same team for once. It was a nice change of pace to be able to put all their heads together and collaborate instead of conspire against each other. She really hadn't felt this close to them in years. It was kind of nice. 

Ed noticed her looking at them and cracked a signature shit-eating grin. "Whats got you all misty-eyed over there, Mittens? Thinking of your beloved?"

Nice, except for the fact that they were still giving her crap about having a dumb crush.

Amity groaned. "I still don't see what this has to do with me allegedly having a crush, here," she protested.

"Well it's typically younger witches who experience partial disruptions because they're still figuring out themselves and their magic at the same time, " said Emira indifferently, still drawing circles in the air, "And in the whole host of deep seated crises that can cause a disruption, the consensus is that crushes are the most common. They're right up there with repressed trauma and major environmental displacement." 

Amity blinked. That had sounded downright scholarly. "Since when did you guys know things from books?" Amity asked, gesturing at her abandoned reading material.

Emira hesitated. She stopped drawing circles, and then turned to fully face Amity. "You remember how a couple of years ago, Dad kept us home from school for a whole week?" she asked.

"Yeah when you guys had that nasty blood fever?" said Amity. It had been one of her more peaceful weeks in recent memory. 

"Nope!" announced Ed, clicking the wand's guts back together, "Emira had a partial disruption because Viney asked her out."

Emira punched him hard in the arm. "Hey at least I didn't _fake_ having one!" she said.

"I wasn't faking!" Ed protested, "I was simply heavily impacted by your plight, dear sister."

Emira threw up her hands, exasperated. "You are such a hypochondriac I swear to the Gods, you just saw my magic was being weird and assumed you had the same problem."

Amity's jaw dropped. "You lost your magic too? And you didn't think to mention that before?!"

Emira rolled her eyes. "No, I didn't lose my magic. It just kind of went haywire. Like, whenever Viney was in the room, my spells would always be ridiculously strong. But when she left they would fizzle out again."

Ed snickered from the other side of the bed. "You had it _bad_."

Emira punched him in the other arm. "At least I actually _had_ something, unlike you."

"Guys. Focus. How do I fix it?" Amity said.

"Well we have to know what problem caused the disruption first," Emira began.

"Which begs the question, how long have you been crushing on Boscha?" finished Ed, with a flourishing eyebrow wiggle.

Emira gave her brother a look. "Ed, she clearly likes Luz. She already dated Boscha."

Ed's eyebrows shot up. "She what? Boscha? Really?!"

Amity groaned and buried her face in her hands. This day literally could not get worse.

"I didn't date Boscha! We had a Grudgby rivalry, thats totally different!" she protested, the words coming out muffled from between her fingers.

Amity could hear the self-satisfied smirk on Emira's face. "Not from where I was standing in the bleachers, baby sister."

Amity threw up her hands. "Regardless, I don't like her. Actually, I kind of hate her. Moving on!"

"Well then that leaves the human," said Ed.

"I do not. Like. The human." said Amity, blushing for reasons that were completely separate from the cute girl with the light glyphs. Totally unrelated. Not even close.

"Well then we can't help you," replied Ed.

"Uh-uh," said Amity, shaking her head, "Nope. A deals a deal. You can't get out of this that easily."

"We're not trying to get out of it," said Emira, "We just literally can't help you. All we know how to deal with is disruptions caused by a crush."

Amity gave her sister a flat look. "Thats incredibly specific and really unhelpful."

"Look, it's not my fault Emira couldn't have a full on identity crisis like you, Mittens" replied Ed.

Amity rolled her eyes at her brother, but inwardly she felt her panic begin to mount again. She wasn't having an identity crisis, was she? She didn't feel like it. Apart from the gnawing suspicion that feeling happy and relaxed for once and not agonizing over the possibility of failure had ironically killed her magic and her future. Who was she if she couldn't do magic? Who was she if she wasn't ruthless? Wasn't determined? Ambitious? The best? A Blight?

She shook her head. There would be plenty of time for existential freak-outs later. For now, she needed information. 

Amity looked at Emira. "Wait, so how did you get it to work, anyways?"

"Huh?" said Emira, going back to drawing the circles.

"Your magic, how did you get it to work again? Did you go out with Viney?" asked Amity, genuinely curious. Neither of the twins had expressed a real romantic interest in anyone for years. Aside from their shared habit of antagonistic flirtation with anything that walked, but that was mostly platonic. Probably. 

"No, I stopped talking to Viney," shrugged Emira.

Amity's eyes went wide and raised an eyebrow at her sister, expecting her to elaborate. Emira just kept drawing circles, but now there was a hard edge to way she repeated the motion over and over. Almost like she was trying to bore a hole into something.

"Okay...," Amity continued, turning to Ed, "And how did you get your magic back, Ed?"

Ed copied his twin's shrug, but refused to meet her gaze.

"We stopped talking to Viney."

\---

A few minutes later, Amity found herself tugging her boots back on and walking out the front door of Blight Manor. Emira had gone disturbingly silent after Amity asked about Viney, and Ed had basically followed suit. She figured she probably wasn't going to get much more help out of the twins today, but in their silence Amity had figured out a hesitant plan. First, she needed to test her powers, running the full gamut of spells types, in order to figure out how bad the disruption was. Then, she needed to figure out what her problem was. She did _not_ have a crush. But she had been feeling off. Ever since she lost to Willow of all people at that abomination test, she felt like she'd been reeling from stupid mistake to stupid mistake. Between the Covention, the library, even that failed midnight conjuring, Amity had slowly felt like she was becoming the failure she'd always feared she'd be. Her parents weren't helping with their hot and cold act, first grounding her and not talking to her and now Mother acting like nothing had even been wrong. And right in the middle of it all was that infuriating, unpredictable, hilarious, and vulnerable human. Luz.

Amity had no clue what she was feeling anymore. Was Luz a friend? Was she a rival? Would her parents even let her associate with a human? Did Amity even want to?

In her swirling confusion, that moment after Covention popped into her mind's eye. Amity felt her heart twist in her chest as she remembered what she had screamed at Luz. Forcing her to admit that she wasn't a witch, just because she couldn't do magic the normal way. But in the face of that accusation, Luz had shown her that dumb little light glyph. The only magic she could do at the time. And it was enough to give her hope.

Amity arrived quickly at her clearing and blinked in surprise by what she found. She had completely forgotten to return and clean the place up after Covention, and it still looked like some kind of war zone. Pieces of rock were scattered around the spot where she had shattered the boulder, and the small, steaming pile of abomination goo had grown into a weird, muddy slush after the recent rains. The mud surrounded part of the tree line, and one of her favorite old oaks was stuck in the ooze. Its branches were sagging comically towards dirt and weird purple tendrils of dead bark curled up it's trunk. She felt a passing stab of distant grief for probably killing the old tree in her negligence.

Amity took another glance around her ruined sanctuary, then cracked her neck and rolled up her sleeves. Now was not the time to lament her failures. She had to focus on the future. She already knew her abomination magic didn't work, but maybe that was the extent of the damage. Maybe she could still use other powers. Practicing magic outside of her coven was taboo, but desperate times call for desperate measures and all that.

Amity took a deep breath, then began to draw a green circle of light in the air, focusing on the ailing tree in front of her. Plant magic was weak, right? If she had any power, this dumb vine spell would work.

Amity completed the green circle and braced herself for a wave of malign anxiety mixed with arcane power. But nothing happened.

She shook out her hands, her panic growing. Okay no plant magic, maybe some illusion spells? Amity switched her focus to a rock shard next to her foot, and drew a smaller blue circle in the air, focusing on trying to make the rock appear like a turtle.

Nothing happened. The rock remained a rock, almost stubbornly so.

Amity ran a hand through her hair. So no illusion magic. Maybe, maybe she could do something with construction magic? Augment her strength for a second?

This time, she closed her eyes and focused on herself. She felt her muscles and tendons across her arms and back, tight from stress but weak from lack of sleep. With both hands moving in tandem, she drew one big circle in front of herself, and tried to pull some of the tide of magic she knew she could tap into.

Again, no wave of power crashed over her. No emotions overran her mind, slipping from her mind to her stomach and from her stomach to her fingertips. She was anxious, sure. She had lost her freaking magic. She was in deep trouble with her parents if they found out, and her future was as clouded as its ever been. But she didn't feel that same nexus of dread, the deep knowledge of her own inevitable failure and the unbearable pressure upon herself. 

Amity frowned. Well that was different. She didn't feel scared of failure for once. 

Why?

Amity opened her eyes and looked around her wrecked clearing again. The last time she was here, she had done some of the most powerful magic of her life. She had crushed that boulder, but she had also crushed herself in a way. She remembered that intensity, that unrelenting anger and anxiety she forced herself to feel to usher forth more and more magic. She grimaced. That hadn't been particularly pleasant. But she did it to herself anyways to make sure she succeeded at the Covention. Which she hadn't.

Amity sat down in the grass and looked up at the sky, the sun beginning to wander over the treetops and stoop lower and lower. Amity had _failed_ at the Covention. And she had failed at the abomination test. And she had failed to prevent her siblings from embarrassing her at the library. And she had needed help to escape from Odabin. She had failed so much recently, she was starting to forget what being successful and in control felt like. 

She thought about Luz wisecracking while they were both stitched into the enormous book. She thought about her own ridiculous book cart attack on Odabin while Luz had him distracted. She thought about how the twins had dropped everything to help her when she asked for it, truly desperate in that moment. When was the last time before all that happened that she had asked for help? That she had attempted something not because she knew she would succeed, but because it would be fun to try?

When did magic become work for her, instead of fun?

Again, the image of that light glyph danced in front of her mind's eye. It was fun for Luz. It was fascinating for Luz. After spending all of last night with the girl, cleaning up the library, Amity could tell that Luz wasn't training to be a witch because she thought it would bring her fame or glory. She wasn't training because her parents were forcing her to be the best, or else. She was training because she loved it. Like Amity had loved it a long time ago. When did she stop loving magic? 

Tears welled up in her eyes as she tried one last spell. It was a long shot, but Amity thought it just might work. She poked a hesitant finger into the earth and drew a small circle, glowing bright yellow.

All at once, she felt a wave of relief wash over her. A warmth of a curiosity long forgotten. She felt the excitement and wonder and _joy_ as a tiny globule of light rose from her circle and drifted towards the sky. It stuttered and faltered in the wind above the trees but the continued up, resolute until Amity couldn't see it in the glow of the late afternoon.

She got up from the ground and dusted her pants off, grinning from ear to ear. She _could_ do magic. She _would_ fix the rest of her spells, but for today the light spell was enough. Somehow, her constant dread and anxiety had failed her. But it was definitely for the best. After all, she had been recently reminded of a better reason to cast spells. Now she just needed to actually remember it.

Standing in the center of her clearing, she began to notice details in the landscape that she had passed over. Like the tiny emerald clovers curling underfoot, the sound of probably not fire-breathing birds tweeting on the treetops, even the way light filtered through the pine needles and dappled the landscape. There was a rugged beauty here, wild and untamed. Hidden between the wreckage of the boulder and the poisonous mud. 

Amity lifted her head high, breathing in the clear forest air. One last time she drew a circle of light in the air, and created another delicate orb of light. She watched it float upward and felt that joy swell up within her again.

And with that, she went to work.

\---

Over two hours later, Amity trudged back to the manor. She was covered in mud, pine needles, and gravel. All of her muscles ached from moving the rock shards and detritus, attempting to return her clearing to a somewhat natural state. She couldn't get rid of the abomination mud, and she ended up having to cut down the tree to a stump, but it looked pretty good after all her hard work. Different, but good. 

She still needed to take a hot shower, eat at least three sandwiches, and then crash for the world's longest nap. But overall, she felt relieved. Like the weight that was slowly constricting her chest for years had suddenly evaporated. She knew she probably had a long way to go to fix her magic completely, but hell. She had some dumb light spells and a direction. That was something.

As she wandered back into the inviting glow of the Manor's lantern light, Amity was surprised to see Ed waiting for her on the little bench just outside the front door. He was reclining slightly, with his hands behind his head and legs crossed out in front of him. He appeared relaxed, but there was a stiffness to his posture. Like he was trying too hard to feign a calm he clearly wasn't feeling. As Amity approached he gave her a lazy wave.

"Whats up? Were you waiting for me?" asked Amity, sitting down on the bench next to him.

"Yeah, how'd the tests go?" asked Ed, shifting awkwardly in his seat.

"Well good news is I can do light spells. Bad news is, I don't think I can do much of anything else right now."

Ed sighed "Hey, well at least thats something. Oh, before I forget. Heres this." He dug into his pocket and tossed the old training wand at Amity. She caught it from the air and glanced at the battery, fully charged.

Amity let out a low whistle. "Damn, how'd you get this thing working again?"

Ed winked at her. "Just a little bit of twin magic. Emira and I thought it would be a good idea to camp out at the Knee later this week. Maybe the great outdoors and crazy magic there can help you sort yourself out. Or whatever."

"Ed, you hate nature." Amity said, throwing a questioning look at her older brother.

Ed glanced out at the tree line, refusing to meet her gaze. "Yeah, but we gotta get this fixed for you. Deal's a deal, after all."

Amity turned the old wand over in her hands. The twins had dropped everything to help her, admittedly under a little duress, but they were really going above and beyond to try to get her magic back. It was strange for them to be this cooperative, protective even. Almost like this whole thing were personal to them.

"Ed?" asked Amity.

"Hm?" he replied. He was still lost in thought, staring at the trees.

"What happened when Father took you out of school? When Emira's magic was acting weird?" she asked, her voice barely above a whisper.

Ed inhaled sharply. 

"Its just - it seems so. Like." Amity had no idea how to even ask this, "Emira liked Viney, right? And then Viney asked her out, and Em had no reason to say no. And then Father pulls you out of school and now none of you even talk to each other anymore?"

Ed laughed humorlessly. "Yeah, she really did have no reason to say no, didn't she?" He turned and finally faced Amity, and there was a seriousness in his expression that Amity had never seen.

"When he pulled us out of school, Dad didn't know either of us were having magic problems," Ed said, "He had heard through his stupid grapevine at work that Emira and Viney had started dating each other, which they had. Emira said yes. And thats why her magic was all crazy. She was just. Happy. Really happy. And then Dad pulled us out of school one day, and gave her an ultimatum. Break up with Viney, or Dad would get her expelled. Apparently, she wasn't the right sort of girl for a Blight to be hanging around."

Amity felt her blood run cold. It was an all too familiar situation. She clenched her fists in her lap, but nodded for Ed to continue.

"The reason we were out of school for a week was because Em was a wreck. She had tried reasoning with him, screaming at him, even casting some spells. But Dad wouldn't budge. And he wouldn't let her leave until she agreed to break up with Viney." Ed turned away and his voice wavered. "Eventually, Emira relented. But she couldn't do it herself. She really cared about Viney. So, Dad had me go and deliver the news. I had to act like Emira really hated her, otherwise she would know something was up. So I told her Emira never wanted to see her again, and that it was all a prank, just to make her look stupid. And Viney was pissed, but Emira was worse. It took her days to just stop crying all the time. I wrecked her happiness. But Dad was satisfied. And things went back to normal. Just without Viney. And now Emira acts like nothing really happened between them."

"Thats. Thats terrible. Gods. How could he... I'm so sorry" said Amity, utterly horrified. She knew that her parents were tough on her, but she had no idea that anything like that had happened to the twins. She felt rage building deep inside of her. It was one thing to push her around, but quite another thing to manipulate her sister. 

Ed slowly exhaled and shook his head, his signature grin returning a second later. "Hey, its all in the past. What we have to focus on right now is getting you sorted out. Which, I think it coming along nicely judging by that fire you're holding right there," he said pointing to her fist, which had burst alight in flame.

Amity yelped and quickly shook out her hand. "Oh my gods, I hadn't even noticed."

Ed laughed. "Well whatever you were feeling right then, maybe hold onto it. Seems like it helped you graduate beyond just light spells, huh?"

Amity shook her head and stood up, facing Ed on the bench. "No. I think its part of the problem, Ed. Like. I'm so angry that they push us around like this. Acting like we're their little puppets to move and manipulate to help the 'family' but not really caring about what happens to us along the way. But if we don't do what they want, we're weak and stupid and failures. Just. Ugh." She kicked the leg of the bench and started to pace in front of Ed. "I'm so sick of it! I'm sick of being terrified all the time! I'm sick of being afraid of when I screw up enough that they stop loving me! Or if I fail so hard that they just completely give up on me. Thats what fuels my magic, Ed. Being afraid of them! Being mad all the time. I can't do it anymore. I used to love doing magic, and now its just this constant test. What if I want to be my own person? What if I want to love magic again? What if I like hanging out with the human, and that's okay? What if I don't want to be what they're trying to make me into?!"

Ed caught her hand as she turned again, and brought her around to face him. That serious look was back in his eye, but it was less harsh this time. Less angry and more... sympathetic.

"That's a tall order for a Blight, Mittens." he said.

Amity felt the tension and anger leave her, as she looked at her older brother. "Yeah, well. Maybe its about time we started pushing for it."

Ed smiled at that, and Amity sat down again next to him. He ruffled her hair affectionately before slinging his arm around her shoulder.

"Well if you figure out how the hell to do that," Ed said, "Let me and Emira know, huh? Gods know we've been trying and failing for years."

Amity laughed, and after a second Ed chuckled too. They sat there in silence, watching the blood-sucking fireflies start to blink alight in the darkening skies. It was nearly dusk, but Amity didn't mind staying up for a few more minutes. The silence was comfortable with Ed for once, and despite the evening's revelations, she felt... good. She had some magic. Ed had listened to her. They had a plan. She felt like someone had her back for once, magic or no magic. 

After a while, Ed stood up and stretched his back. "Man that tiny bench sucks. I have no clue how you can chill out here, Amity. Nature isn't my thing. I think my whole butt just fell asleep," he said stretching his spine to look at his behind.

Amity laughed again. "I can't help it that your butt is weak. Imagine what Father would say. 'You need to spend more time honing your physical skills, Edric. No child of mine will have weak cheeks! Its a disgrace to the name of Blight!'"

Ed snorted, then glanced at the door and sighed. "Well, we better get back in there. You especially, you really do look like-"

"I know. I look like hell." Amity said. Rolling her eyes but still smiling, she followed her big brother back into Blight Manor.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry this took a while to update. I made a pretty bold deviation from my plans last chapter, and I had to figure out where to go with it. I knew I had the Knee episode coming up after this where the twins help out Amity, and I wanted to make sure their total 180 from antagonism to assistance felt genuine. I'm excited to get to the back half of the season where Luz becomes a more prominent character for Amity. Also, I'm adding a chapter to the end total since this thread took a little longer than I anticipated to wrap up, but overall I'm really happy with it. 
> 
> Up next: Will Ed survive being in nature for more than 10 minutes? How does Amity hide that her magic is gone while on a training trip with her totally-not-a-crush-haha-what friend Luz? Will Amity ever achieve emotional balance?!?!?! Tune in the next time I update! Which will be sometime. In the future. God I have so much work to do.


	5. Alternate Perspectives (During 1.12)

"What the _hell_ was that?"

As soon as Luz was out of sight, Amity turned around to glare at her siblings. This was _supposed_ to be just a simple market trip before they went to the Knee. Buy some supplies, return Luz's book, maybe get some coffee at The Witch's Brew. Literally, the most foolproof trip in the world. Buy things, don't do magic, go home. Easy.

And then the twins had to go and try to screw everything up.

"What do you mean?" said Emira with a grin, "She's learning magic, we're learning magic. It makes sense to invite her to come with us."

Amity glared at her sister harder. Emira shrugged and started perusing one of the nearby stalls. They were looking for some new camping gear to brave the intense cold of the Knee. It had only been a week since Amity's magic got disrupted and Ed had pitched the trip, but the twins worked fast. Before dinner that night, they had started working on getting Mother and Father on board. After a few days of needling, begging, and reasoning, they were finally allowed to go. However, Father had stipulated that in order to go, they had to take a full index of the expedition gear in their storage shed and update it accordingly. Hence, the market trip.

"Whats the problem?" continued Emira, as she inspected some apparently portable, actually flaming campfires. "We're just trying to help you out. You clearly like her, and maybe if you two can figure out whats going on between you, it'll help with your little identity crisis." 

Amity groaned. "I _told_ you I don't like Luz. And if she showed up, we'd have the added trouble of hiding the fact that I can't do magic from her, in case you forgot that tiny, insignificant detail."

Ed poked his head around a corner, wearing a sombrero that he got from Gods knew where. "Pfft you worry too much, Mittens. You've got the training wand as a cover and your spells are already starting to come back. You have, what? Light spells, obstruction spells, plant magic, and illusions? Plus that disintegration charm just now worked nicely."

"That was supposed to be a fire spell..." Amity mumbled.

"Oh. Whoops." said Ed, removing the hat. "Anywho. Doesn't Luz already know your magic is all whack? Weren't you with her when you found out?"

"No, that was Boscha," said Amity.

Ed grimaced. "Yikes, hows that going?"

"Not great," she said with a sigh, "She keeps lording it over me at school, making vague jokes about it. She's basically threatening me, but she's being so oblique about it that I can't do anything. So I've just been ignoring her. Reading books and stuff." Amity kicked at the ground. "I can't call her out for being a jerk without her exposing me, so I just have to sit there and take it. Its driving me nuts!"

"Can't you just stop hanging out with her? She kind of sucks. And you hate her." said Emira, turning over a flaming log in one hand. As the fire swept across her arm, she didn't flinch or pull back. Emira raised an eyebrow thoughtfully. "Hm, synthetic fire. Father always does always like the latest and greatest. We should get this one." 

Amity dug into her pocket and tossed Emira two gold snails. "Sounds good to me. But no I can't just drop her, Mother and Father would be all over me again, and I really don't want to do that." 

Amity drifted closer to where Ed was standing. He had managed to find a section of the stall entirely devoted to novelty survival gear. His previous sombrero was hung back up on a wall peg, but the tag was hanging down from the rim. "Keep your ear tips toasty with Tibbles' Terrific Cranium Thermal Incubator!"

"Who the heck is Tibbles..." grumbled Amity, mostly to herself. All of the stuff in this section was junk. From where she was standing, she could see canteens with holes in them, hiking boots with traction spikes glued onto them and a suspicious shelf of dubious snacks that Ed was perusing with his back to her. Amity walked over to his side and saw he was examining a bag of Bloodthirsty Bat Jerky. 

Ed glanced at her with an eyebrow raised. "What happened to all that talk about not doing what Mom and Dad want and being our own people, huh?" He asked, examining the packaging on the bag.

Amity laughed. "Its easy to say, hard to do. Just like choking down that Bat Jerky." 

Ed defensively clutched the jerky bag to his chest. "Hey! I would totally eat this if we got it. Extra protein, plus teriyaki flavoring! I could eat blood-sucking bat flesh no problem."

Emira walked back over with a shopping bag that was smoking ominously. "Sure, Ed. Just like how you could definitely choke down those Barbecue Blister Beetles last time."

"Look," said Ed, gesturing with the jerky pack, "Bugs and parasites are a totally different story. I'll have a hard pass on anything with an exoskeleton. But regular old mammals? I'd be down for that. But speaking of parasites, whats the plan to deal with Boscha?"

Amity snatched the jerky out of Ed's hand and put it back on the shelf. It definitely wasn't a Father-approved purchase. "I'm not sure. Maybe I can ditch her around Grudgby season. She's extra unbearable then, so I'll have a built-in excuse."

Emira scoffed. "Ugh yeah, you remember what she did the first day of the season last year? She walked through the front doors, struck a dumb pose and yelled 'Your star has arrived! Groveling line starts here.' What a loser. As if she deserves a single grovel."

Amity laughed at her sister's surprisingly accurate imitation. "Since when do you pay attention to underclassmen, Emira?"

Emira leaned over and poked Amity in the nose. "Since those underclassmen date my baby sister, Amity."

Amity glared and shoved Emira. "For the last time. We didn't date. It was just a Grudgby rivalry."

Emira grinned "Hm, then what was that almost kiss at the Grudgby championships two years ago, then?"

Amity blushed despite her annoyance. "That was a platonic rival staredown followed by an intense victory hug!" She said a little too quickly. "Anyways! Do we have everything? Can we go now?"

Emira laughed. "Yeah we can go," She turned and grabbed Ed by the back of the collar, dragging him away from the jerky. "We should head down to the campsite soon. Prime time for magic is always noon or the witching hour, and I don't feel like staying out late."

"Cool, I'll meet you over there," said Amity. "I still have one more stop to make before I head out."

"Oh? Ed can go with you, then. I should probably get home and get Dad's approval for the log." said Emira, releasing the back of Ed's collar.

Ed straightened his shirt and stuck his tongue out at Emira before turning to Amity. "Yeah, I can go with. Where we heading?"

"Nowhere! Just a quick stop, I don't need you to go with me," said Amity, trying to sidestep around the twins.

Ed nodded sagely and shot Emira a look. "Ah, I see. Secret rendezvous. Makes sense."

Emira giggled, "Yeah we wouldn't want to third wheel you and Luz again."

Amity wordlessly turned on her heel and flipped the twins off from over her shoulder as she walked away. They erupted in laughter behind her. 

"See you later, Mittens!" called Ed, "Tell Luz we say hi!"

Amity didn't actually have anywhere else to go, she just wanted a break from the two of them. They had been all over her since she told them her magic was gone, which was really sweet, admittedly. They went everywhere with her, making sure she didn't have to use any magic and covered for her constantly in front of their parents. Amity had to admit, without the twins she would have been pretty screwed. But still, they were always so intense. Ed had a tendency to get himself into trouble and Emira always had to be in charge. Plus, they wouldn't give up on this stupid crush theory of theirs, regardless of how many times Amity explained that she did not. Like. Luz. Or Boscha. Especially not Boscha.

As Amity wound through the marketplace, she felt heat rising to her cheeks again. What really bugged her about the whole thing was that Emira wasn't exactly wrong. Amity and Boscha's relationship was ... strange. They weren't exactly friends, because they both knew that they didn't like each other. But they weren't exactly rivals, because they tended to work together more often than not. They were both MVPs on the Grudgby squad, top students in their classes, and undeniably the most popular girls in school. Early on, they had realized that between Amity's talent for magic and insults, and Boscha's expertise in navigating the social minefield of Hexside, they could rule the school. So they did. Together. It was a strange way to bond, but they inevitably formed an antagonistic camaraderie. Even though they didn't exactly like each other, there was a gravity that kept bringing them together. A weird knowledge that if the other one were to abandon them, all of the status and prestige they had collected together would collapse. So they hung in their strange, competitive orbit, never sure what the other was thinking or planning. The uncertainty drove Amity crazy. Sometimes, it seemed like they were thick as thieves, or maybe more. Other times, like now, she felt like Boscha was just using her to get ahead.

Amity found a bench and sat down, looking out over the crowd of people weaving in and out of the stalls and tents. Her gaze settled on the old library and she found herself smiling. Luz wasn't like Boscha at all. Luz could have left Amity when she got captured by Odabin, or could have just walked away from her after the Covention. Boscha probably would have. Instead, Luz chose to circle back and try to help Amity, regardless of any petty, one-sided rivalry Amity had been playing into. It was like a breath of fresh air compared to her current friend group. Luz was uncomplicated, straightforward. She was earnest and confident and goofy and brash. She was everything Amity wasn't, and Amity found herself caught in an opposite gravity with the human. 

With Luz, Amity _wanted_ to get closer to her. With Boscha, Amity was just afraid to leave.  
\---

Hours after she had abandoned the tranquil solitude of her little park bench, Amity was beginning to regret leaving it at all.

"Think fast!" Emira yelled, casting a small avalanche at Amity's head.

Amity didn't even have time to set down her bowl and spoon before the wave of snow collided directly with her face. She shook off a layer of fresh powder from her hair before yelling back at her older sister, "What was that for?!"

Emira casually walked up next to where Amity was sitting at their campfire. "You really suck at this, baby sister." 

Amity grit her teeth and shook the snow out of her bowl. "Maybe thats because you keep throwing things at me!"

Emira shrugged. "Hey, this is how I got my magic working right again. You gotta retrain your instincts. Get those reflexes recalibrated."

Ed perked his head up from where he was seated stirring the cauldron. "Maybe you should cut her a break Em, we've been at it for hours." 

Emira gave him a withering look. "We already had a break when we had to stop you from eating that bat."

Ed pulled the ladle out of the cauldron and pointed it at Emira and Amity accusingly. "Look, you two wouldn't let me buy the bat jerky, and now you won't let me eat the other bat instead. This is discrimination!"

Amity reached over and gently moved the ladle away from her face. "Ed, you can't eat raw bat."

He sullenly put the ladle back in the pot. "I would've cooked it!"

"You can't cook to save your life," snorted Emira.

"Maybe you could go ask the Owl Lady how to do it. I hear she fries up winged things all the time," offered Amity. Luz hadn't contradicted her when she said it the first time. That was basically agreeing, right?

Ed gave her a startled look as he spooned stew into her now snow-free bowl. "Wait, straight up? Thats why she's the Owl Lady? She eats owls?"

Amity nodded, taking back the bowl. "Yep, I saw it on Penstagram. And Luz basically confirmed it last week."

"Huh. Metal." said Ed.

Emira rolled her eyes. "Ugh, this is why we never used to hang out with you, Mittens. You and Ed are just too much together. Its exhausting."

"Does that mean we can take a break for dinner?" asked Ed, grinning.

"Only if its a working break!" Emira relented. 

Ed held up his hand and Amity slapped it for the obligatory high-five. After their heart-to-heart outside Blight Manor, their new sibling alliance was working wonders. Ed spooned out bowls for himself and Emira, while Emira sat down next to the campfire and stretched out her legs. Amity took a hesitant bite of the stew and had to suppress a grimace. Ed really was _not_ the best chef.

"So Amity," began Emira nonchalantly, "what's your new arcane source?"

Amity nearly choked on her stew. " _What?_ "

"You use your emotions to cast spells. Your magic is disrupted because your emotions shifted dramatically, right? What's the new emotion you're using to do magic?" asked Emira.

Amity felt her cheeks begin glow red. "Em, thats pretty personal."

Emira crossed her arms. "Look, do you want my help or not? We've been trying all afternoon and you still can't cast any destructive magic without that wand. If I knew what I was working with, then maybe we could make some better progress."

Amity glared at her sister for a second and then relented. She had a point, but Amity just wasn't in a particularly trusting mood after getting a faceful of snow. "I guess, just like. Curiosity? Excitement? Determination? I don't know, I went from like all negatives to all positives. Its still really confusing."

Emira raised an eyebrow. "Well there's part of your problem. You shouldn't cast destructive magic with positive emotions."

Amity furrowed her eyebrows together. "Huh? Why not?"

"Well, because you're not a psychopath," said Ed from around a spoonful of stew, "At least, you're probably not psychopath."

"Thanks Ed," said Amity with a dry look at her older brother, "Okay, but my source isn't negative anymore so how am I supposed to cast it if not with the new one?"

Emira shrugged. "You have to find another angle, Mittens."

"Another angle." said Amity with a flat look. 

Emira sighed. "Look. You like to face your problems head-on. If you have an issue with someone, they always know about it. You have a tendency to crush your competition. You like to win, thoroughly. You can't do that here. You can't directly use negative emotions because that source is disrupted. You shouldn't directly use positives because being excited while blowing up a tree is a little unhinged, and probably too close to your old source. Destructive magic can be tricky like that. You have to figure out another way to approach it."

Amity scoffed. "You sound like such an illusionist right now, Emira."

"Actually," chimed in Ed, rubbing his chin, "thats not a bad point. A big part of illusions is redirecting someone's attention. If you conjure up a realistic clown, its really not that scary. But if you exaggerate certain features so people focus on them, like huge red eyes and pointed teeth, you can freak someone out pretty good. You might have to pick and choose an aspect of what you're doing to motivate yourself. Like, you're not determined to sit there and blow up a tree. Maybe you're determined to make some firewood so you can keep warm."

"Exactly," nodded Emira, "When I cast spells, I'm not thinking about what they do, I'm thinking about what I'm trying to accomplish. Makes things cleaner. Then again, I don't use my emotions to cast anymore, so you might have to get more creative than that."

Amity blinked. She hadn't realized that Emira abandoned using her emotions to cast entirely. Amity figured that her sister had just created a new source, like she was trying to do. "Wait, how come I don't just do that? Not use emotional casting?"

Emira tilted her head at Amity and then glanced at Ed. "I don't think that'll work for you. Its a pretty traumatic shift to just cut that off entirely. Plus, your method of spellcasting works for you. You can be pretty scary with those abominations when you want to be. I think redirecting your focus might be your best bet."

Amity fiddled with the spoon in her hand. "I don't know guys. It just doesn't seem like my style. Like you said, I like to handle things directly."

"Aw c'mon, you can be crafty," said Ed, "I don't know how many times you've given me a backhanded compliment. Its basically the same principle."

Amity laughed "Well, thats not exactly hard."

Ed launched a bite of stew at her from his bowl. "Hey! Discrimination!"

Amity ducked away from his stew projectile, still chuckling. "Okay, I'll try it your way, Em. But I want to do it with the wand first, I think its helping a little."

Emira grinned. "Great! Lets get started, then. Where's your wand?"

Amity stood and glanced around the campsite. She could've sworn it was right next to the tent- 

At that moment, Amity heard the telltale whine of a fire spell streaking through the sky, followed by an explosive bang and blast of air as it detonated. Amity was nearly knocked off her feet. The twins simply braced using the rocks they had been sitting on. As she regained her footing, Amity heard another ominous sound: the distressed roar of an angry slitherbeast. She gulped and looked at the twins.

Emira was the first to recover and stood quickly. She tracked the smoke in the sky with her arm, pointing to its source on a nearby hilltop. She looked at Ed and Amity. "It came from over there! Hey, isn't that around where Luz is training?"

Amity felt her stomach flip. "Yeah. We better go check it out."

\---  
As Amity peeked around the corner of the boulder in the slitherbeast's cave, she was beginning to wonder if she would ever have a normal afternoon again.

After the attack, she had managed to lock Luz behind a light barrier, thank the Gods. She wasn't sure it would work, but in the moment all she had been focusing on was protecting Luz from herself. Light glyphs can't fight monsters, and even thought she was lacking in firepower at the moment, Amity had a much better chance against the slitherbeast than Luz. Amity could see a dozen different scenarios of Luz bravely charging the monster, only to end up as an appetizer for a Blight twins main course followed by an Owl Lady dessert. 

Amity gulped. Those scenarios could just as easily apply to her if she didn't play her cards right. 

As she watched the slitherbeast adhere its captured quarry against the wall, she went through her mental list of magic that was working. She had light spells, barriers, small illusions, and disintigration - but only on accident. Still no fire, still no abominations. She cursed under her breath. Her strongest spells were still out of commission, and she highly doubted she could dazzle the thing to death. Amity felt sweat trickle down her neck despite the cold. She wished she had some of Luz's often crazy bravery right now. Usually she relied on her knowledge and training to create a magical solution to her problems. When that wasn't an option, she just cranked up the ol' Blight charm and read whoever was bothering her for filth. Like Emira said, she tended to go for the direct approach. But without her magic and with a non-sentient opponent, she didn't have any straightforward way out of this. She felt her heart thunder in her chest as she examined her enormous enemy, looking for an opening, a weakness, anything to help her save her siblings. 

She studied the beast's body language as it lumbered around the cave, looking for ... something. Maybe she could use that? Figure out an angle of attack based on the beast's behavior? It had been years since she last took beast keeping, but she remembered a couple things. Maybe it was saving the twins and the Owl Lady as food for later in the season? Did slitherbeasts even hibernate? She tracked its movements across the cave until a furry hat obstructed her view - wait, furry hat? 

Amity looked closer. "Luz?!" Sure enough the other girl was there, standing right next to her and imitating her determined glare at the monster. 

Luz broke character immediately and cracked a grin at Amity. "Hello!"

Amity pulled them both back behind the shelter of the boulder. "How did you get past the barrier?!" Had Amity's magic failed? Was she backsliding? Gods, this stupid training trip was supposed to fix her magic, not screw it up more.

Luz gave her that easygoing smile, and the panic welling up in Amity dissipated. "Magic! Literally!" she said by way of explanation, without really explaining anything at all. Signature Luz. "Now, forget that because you and I have to work together to if we want to save everyone. Okay, now here's what we're gonna do."

The other girl conspiratorially cupped her hand around Amity's ear and Amity stiffened before relaxing into the close proximity with Luz. She was always surprised at how friendly the other girl was, despite how they had been bitter enemies not two weeks ago. Amity wasn't exactly complaining, she liked being around Luz. It was always just a shock to see how close they were becoming so quickly.

"I'm going to call the slitherbeast a big idiot and then have it chase me out of the cave. I have a glyph right in the opening that'll launch it out over the forest, which would be totally sick if it weren't trying to kill us. While I do that, you have to melt Eda and the twins down from that wall with that fire spell you're practicing."

Amity's eyes went wide. "Luz, I can't do the fire spell! I've been trying all day, and it's never worked once without the training wand."

Luz put a hand on Amity's shoulder. "Amity. You're one of the most powerful witches I know. You would've kicked my ass at Covention, with or without that construction glyph. If you can't do that fire spell, nobody can. I believe in you." Luz winked and then started to jog away. "Now, I gotta go insult a bloodthirsty monster's intelligence. As soon as I'm out of here, you get them nice and melted, Blight!"

Amity stared dumbfounded at that crazy human. Luz believed in her. Luz _winked_ at her. Amity blushed and shook her head. That girl was going to be the death of her one way or another, she thought, smiling despite the circumstances. 

"Hey!" Amity heard Luz call out from the other side of the cave, "You big idiot! Over here!" 

Crap. Amity had to move.

As she heard the slitherbeast roar and chase after Luz, Amity ran towards the rocky plateau right below the twins and Eda. She hauled herself up the rocks, scrambling to find purchase on the icy cliffs until she finally peeked her head over the top of the edge. 

"Amity!" exclaimed Ed with a relieved smile.

"Use that fire spell we taught you!" immediately encouraged Emira, all business as usual.

Amity dragged herself up the rest of the cliff and got herself upright on the plateau. She shook her head, all the confidence Luz had infused in her had vanished when confronted with the reality of her siblings frozen to the wall. "But I can't do it without the wand!"

Emira's eyes softened. "Yes, you can! Just focus."

Amity took a breath. "Okay."

She closed her eyes and heard her sister's words from before echo in her mind: _find the other angle_. Amity drew a small circle in the air, trying to coax forth the fireballs she had conjured with the wand earlier. She felt the spell circle waver in front of her as it had done countless times before, but she furrowed her brow and focused with her emotions. She wasn't trying to melt the ice. She wasn't trying to blow something up. She wasn't trying to hurt anyone anymore. All she could think about was saving her siblings, and freeing Eda so Luz wouldn't become a slitherbeast snack. She was trying to save lives, here! How's that for a positive emotion?

All at once, she felt the familiar power flood back into her senses, rushing her nerve endings and crashing over her fingertips. The magical pathways in herself that had been dormant for over a week suddenly gasped back online, sending an intense burst of energy streaking out into the spell circle. She felt blistering heat pour out from the weak line she had drawn in the air and opened her eyes to see a dense, hot ball of flame held aloft by her own hands. Her eyes widened and she was nearly overwhelmed with that new, intense, warm feeling she experienced when she finally cast a spell again. She had _done_ it! She smiled triumphantly and moved the ball closer to the frozen wall. 

"Cool," said Emira, the steely nonchalance returning to her eyes as her limbs were freed, "I didn't actually think you could do it."

As Amity reached down to help up her siblings, they heard a distressed yell echo through caverns followed by the thundering gait of the slitherbeast giving chase. Amity felt her heart clench and her stomach flip again. 

"Luz!"  
\--- 

Amity shouldn't have worried about Luz. Of course she'd find a way to stare down a two-ton slitherbeast and launch it over the treetops. Of course her mentor could put a beast that size to sleep with the simple flick of her wrists. Amity shook her head as she walked down the long, winding road home with the twins. That girl was absolutely full of surprises. Just when Amity though she had her nailed down, Luz found a way to completely subvert her expectations. Like taking on a slitherbeast almost single-handedly. Or like joining her class at Hexside.

Ed slung his arm around Amity's neck before ruffling her hair. "What's got you pulling that face, Amity? You should be happy! We're all not dead and your magic is basically back to normal!"

"I'm fine, I'm happy. Just thinking about that slitherbeast again," Amity lied. She wasn't sure why the news that Luz would be in her class bothered her slightly. Maybe it was because Amity liked their current dynamic. They tended to run into each other away from the prying eyes of Amity's classmates. She didn't feel the same pressure to be perfect when it was just her and Luz. Around her peers, and especially Boscha, Amity knew she acted different. She wasn't ready for those two worlds to collide yet. The world of Hexside where Amity was the cold, calculating star student; and then the world of just her and Luz where she could be herself and pretend everyone else didn't matter as much.

Emira was walking ahead of them, towing a bag stuffed with their camping gear. She threw a glance over her shoulder, "I know what'll cheer you up. You should try summoning an abomination."

Amity wrinkled her nose. "Oh yeah, summoning some steaming mud sure would do wonders for my mood, Emira."

"No, I'm serious," Emira replied, "You should give it a shot. Fire magic and abominations aren't so different. I'm willing to bet you can make one, albeit probably a wimpy one."

Amity scoffed. That was ridiculous. She had studied abominations for years and while sure, they share the same category of destruction magic, they were polar opposites. 

"Fire magic and abominations are nothing alike! Fire is this wild, untamable force of nature. You can't really control it, only direct it and regulate how much fuel you give it." Amity said, reciting the facts from memory. She absently felt Ed tug on her hand, but she didn't pay much attention to it, she was on a roll. "With abominations, thats a near-sentient entity! Sometimes you can dominate it with your own force of will, sure. But it works better if you motivate it, connect to it somehow. You can't do that with fire magic; abominations require a much subtler touch. Any old idiot can blow something up, but it takes real skill to create an actual _being_ from - wait, why are you two looking at me like that?"

Edric and Emira were grinning at her. She looked to her right to see Ed had pulled her hand into a pointing position and drawn a magic circle with her index finger. It glowed purple in the air before her, abomination purple. She gasped and looked down at the ground, and right at her feet stood a tiny abomination, about a quarter of the size of her usual stock, but still a fully-fledged little monster.

Amity's jaw dropped as she knelt to the ground to look at it. It had incredible definition compared to her failed summonings before. It had thick arms and legs with a trunk-like torso connecting to its head where two glowing eyes pulsed lightly. It was absolutely textbook. Her little creation stood at attention, apparently ready to be given an instruction. Amity nearly yelled with joy.

"How - how did you know?" she said, rising to her feet.

Ed gave her a cocky grin. "Illusionists. We just redirected your energy a little."

"I haven't made one this small since I was in the baby class," said Amity, patting its head, "but its perfect!" 

"See, I told you so," said Emira, kneeling down to examine the abomination. She reached out a hand to poke its head. "Aw, he's almost cute. I bet you he couldn't hurt a fly - OW!" Amity's abomination bit Emira's finger, then scurried behind Amity's legs. 

"Why'd you make it do that?!" said Emira, sucking on her injured finger. 

Amity laughed aloud. "I didn't make it do anything! Usually I cast these guys with a default command in place, without it they just run a little wild."

"Will it still even take a command?" asked Ed, stepping away from Amity and her adorable, rogue minion.

"Lets find out," said Amity, as a wicked smile spread across her face. Oh, how she had missed this. "Abomination! Seize!"

In a flash, the tiny purple goo monster was out from behind her legs and running straight at Ed, who had started to run down the road ahead of them.

"I think it takes commands! Call it off! I don't want to get suplexed by a midget!" yelled Ed as he scrambled barely ahead of the abomination.

Amity laughed and dismissed it with a wave of her hand and the little being melted back into purple mud once more. She turned to Emira, grinning from ear to ear.

"Consider you guys' end of the deal done." she said, "I really can't thank you enough for helping me out this past week."

Emira shrugged. "Hey, we're not done until you're back at full strength. But you're welcome," she said, speaking with a sincerity in her voice that Amity only heard at duels and funerals. All at once, the malice and schemes of the past few years melted away, and Amity felt like she was five years old again, tagging along with the twins to make a bootleg potion in the pantry or throw slimeballs at each other outside. Back when they were too young to understand the weirdness of their parents or the pressure of their home. Just three talented goofballs all getting into trouble together. 

Emira stepped next to Amity and pulled her into a one-armed hug as they walked side-by-side, trying to catch up with Ed. 

"Now," she said, a mischievous grin nearly identical to Amity's spreading across her face, "Lets see if you can summon a bigger one."

The rest of the walk home was spent in an amicable combination of easy conversation, joking banter, and repeated abomination summonings. By the time Amity and the twins got home, Amity could summon abominations twice the size of her pipsqueak version, they had thoroughly roasted Ed over trying to sneak a bat into his backpack, and Emira had nearly fallen over laughing when Ed and Amity teamed up to do competing impressions Principal Bump. They stumbled inside the door, still giggling over Ed's impersonation of Bump hitting on Miss Jenkinmeyer, when their mother's voice rang out from a room away.

"Children!" Amity heard her mother call from Father's study, "Come in here, we need to talk."

The three of them exchanged a knowing glance and immediately sobered their expressions. They all dutifully took off their shoes, set down their gear and filed silently into the study. Nestled in between two enormous bookshelves was Father's imposing mahogany desk, which Mother was leaning against while Father sat behind, reclining slightly in his chair. At their entrance, he sat up, set his elbows on the desk, and steepled his fingers in front of him before announcing:

"There's a human enrolling at Hexside."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So I have to confess. I didn't like Ed and Emira that much before I started writing this fic, but now? I would die for ALL the Blight siblings. I love how they all have distinct personalities but common traits around achievement, talent, and troublemaking. While Amity is more straight-laced than the twins, she does have a huge tendency to start fights and be a little brutal, which is one of the reasons why she's my absolute favorite. 
> 
> Now, on the topic of the fic. As you can see, I've added another chapter to the end total primarily because I have no self-control but also because I realized I needed some space for a post 1.12, pre 1.15 episode. We have a lot of ground to cover, especially with the triple Lumity threat of Understanding Willow, Enchanting Grom Fright, and Wing It Like Witches in our immediate future. Amity has a hell of a few days ahead of her, and she's going to need all the time and subplots she can manage if she's going to be in fighting shape to face her past, her fears, and (most importantly) SPORTS.
> 
> This fic is an absolute joy to write and I've been loving all the feedback from people who have liked it so far! I'm trying to update weekly, so look out for chapter 6 sometime next weekend. Thanks for reading!


	6. Brute Force (Between 1.12 and 1.15)

Emira yanked the door to her room open and shoved Amity inside before slamming the door. "Look," she said, pinching the bridge of her nose, "I get that you're going through an identity crisis and a rebellious phase and you have a crush on a human to boot, but now is not the time to start shit with Mom and Dad."

Amity gaped. They had just listened to a ten minute lecture from their parents that consisted of roundabout explanations, moral equivocations, and truly dubious reasoning that apparently the human "problem" had to be removed from Hexside immediately. 

"Did you even hear them?" Amity exclaimed, "They're going to get her kicked out of Hexside! They're trying to do the same thing to Luz that they did to Willow! To Viney! We can't let them-"

Emira held up her hand to silence her. "I get it. You're mad. You made that abundantly clear downstairs. You feel like they're unfair. Well, its because they are. But its not our job to make them fair. We can't fix this shit, Amity. They're screwed up. And there's nothing we can do right now -"

"Are you kidding me?" Amity hissed, trying not to raise her voice but her anger was getting the better of her, "That's all you have to say? After what they did to you? You're just gonna roll over and let them have their way all over again?"

"If you'd just _listen_ to me, you'll know I'm not!" Emira yelled, slamming her fist on her desk.

Amity had opened her mouth to keep arguing, but quickly shut it. She had never seen her sister this angry before, she was usually the definition of cool and poised, just like she had been downstairs. Completely in control of the situation, never letting her emotions slip out.

Emira grabbed her by the shoulders, looking directly into her eyes. "I know Ed is still pissed at Dad because of what he made him do, and I know you're pissed because Mom and Dad pick on you more now that we grew up and became the golden children. But rage isn't the right way to handle this, Amity." 

Amity jerked her shoulder out of Emira's grip. "Oh yeah? Then what is? If we don't do something, they'll just keep walking all over us!"

Emira sighed in frustration and brought her hand up to rub her forehead. "Look. Its not our fight, we're just kids. All we can do is get away with what we can, and give in when we have to. If that means hanging out with your girlfriend in secret, then do it. But what it doesn't mean is picking a fight that only you can lose. We can't help Luz by duking it out with them like this. All that'll do is get you in trouble and get her kicked out faster. If you keep going around picking these kinds of fights, the only thing that'll happen is they'll make sure you regret it. We have to be smarter. If they think you're defying them, they'll just push you harder. But if you play into what they want, they won't pay attention to you and you can get away with more. Always appear like you're the perfect little Blight, and they won't know to suspect more. Thats the angle. Thats how you win."

Amity glared at Emira. Unfortunately, what she was saying made some sense. Amity just didn't want to hear it right now. She had faced down a slitherbeast, recaptured some of her most powerful magic, and just called her Father a prejudiced asshole. She didn't want to back down from a fight, she wanted to clock someone in the face.

"Maybe thats what works for you," said Amity through gritted teeth, "but I don't want to spend the next four years getting steamrolled by two overgrown socialites."

Emira threw up her hands, exasperated. "Then don't! Do what Ed and I do! Sneak out, play pranks, hang out with delinquents, go goblin tipping! Be your own person! Just far, far away from them. Understand? You can't argue with crazy. I tried! And look where it got me." she said bitterly.

Amity could hear the logic in her sister's argument. Mother and Father controlled the playing field and they had all the power. If she faced them in a head-on argument, she'd lose every time. 

Amity nodded begrudgingly. "Yeah, fine. I get it."

The tension fell from Emira's shoulders. "Good." she said, "Now I'll go back downstairs and calm things down a bit." Emira paused, then added, "You just chill out, alright? You did good today. Take a break. You deserve it."

Amity felt her rage begin to wane and the beginning of a smile tug at the corners of her lips. Emira didn't give out compliments. Ever. 

"Fine. Thanks, Em."

Emira shrugged and turned to leave. "Don't mention it."

"Wait." said Amity, remembering Emira's comment from before, "What you said earlier about hanging out with Luz in secret. She's not my girlfriend. We're just friends. Don't go around saying that to people."

Emira hesitated with one hand on the doorknob. 

"I wasn't talking about you and Luz."

Emira walked out the door, leaving Amity alone.

\---

Amity stewed in her thoughts for the rest of the afternoon and well into the evening. The distant tumult of raised voices and negotiations had long since died down. Ed had briefly come to her room to tell her that their parents were reasonably mollified for the moment, and there would be no punishment. Apparently, even Mother and Father knew that they were pushing it with their children lately.

As Amity paced back in her room, she couldn't stop thinking about what Emira had said. Not only that they were largely powerless to fight against this latest threat, but that Amity probably just had to end up complying in order to have any relationship with Luz at all. 

In one of her darker moments, Amity had considered whether Luz getting kicked out of Hexside would really be that bad. A little voice in the back of her head had whispered that Luz would just learn magic from Eda again, and she would likely have no idea about Amity's involvement. Amity and Luz could resume their friendship without the complications of Hexside that she had feared; no weird antagonism from Boscha, or constant pressure to be the perfect witch. Amity could probably even be happy that way.

She had quickly shut down that line of thinking. Her own priorities weren't her only concern. What mattered most was that Luz wanted to study at Hexside. She was enamored with magic in all its forms, and had struggled for weeks to learn enough to get in. Amity couldn't selfishly put her own feelings over Luz's and allow her parents to screw up her life like that. Amity couldn't stand to let her parents push other people around the way she had been forced to endure. It made her blood boil at the thought.

But Emira had a point, Amity couldn't fight her parents directly and win. She had to find another way to get to them. She knew that her parents' influence was largely because of their financial donations to the school. However, she also knew from Father's loud, frustrated crystal ball meetings with his colleagues that Principal Bump routinely shut down parent involvement where he could, so maybe Bump could help her. But what could she use to offset the weight of her parent's money and reputation? 

Amity flopped down on her bed, utterly dejected. There was nothing she had that she could use as leverage. This wasn't her kind of conflict, one where she schemed and planned in the shadows, working against things much bigger than herself. She preferred the open pitch and clear rules of a Grudgby match, or the traditions and quick brutality of a witch's duel. She wasn't cut out for this. She was doomed.

She huffed and turned over on her bed, her eyes settling on the dead training wand from earlier. As cliche as it seemed, she had recently been in a situation just like this. No direct route to victory, her options highly limited. And just when she had no clue how to proceed, Luz had popped up. Luz didn't necessarily have a solution. Her plan to insult the beast was practically the same as Amity's first impulse had been. But Luz had offered her something different, something more important.

Amity sat up. Her head felt weird and fuzzy remembering that wink and the warm hand on her shoulder. Luz had helped Amity believe in herself. And as a result, Amity had most of her power back. Even her abominations. She wondered...

Amity stood up from her bed and walked to the middle of her room. She took a deep breath, completely blanking her mind except for that strange fuzzy feeling. She reached out with her hand first, drawing a purple spell circle in the air. Then she reached out with her emotions, remembering what Luz had told her earlier that day.

"Amity, you're one of the most powerful witches I know."

At once, the spell circle glowed with bright light and an abomination slowly formed in front of her. The purple ooze spiraled up in delicate tendrils, forming the vague outline of a body. It was small in stature, but already the amorphous body had adopted a posture of confidence, power, drive.

"If you can't do that fire spell, nobody can."

The loose limbs gained more definition, and a head started to form. Strong jawline, distinctive ponytail, pointed ears.

"I believe in you."

At the final words, the abomination settled into its completed form. A near perfect copy of Amity herself, but slightly different. Where previously, the abomination's expression had been impassive and inanimate. This one had some more personality to it. A confidence in its posture, thoughtfulness in its brow. When Amity looked upon her own face, sculpted out of mud and magic, she didn't feel the same pit of dread and fear that brought her to tears the last time she had completed this ritual. She reached out hesitantly to try to touch the being, and to her surprise the abomination reached back. Their two hands met in front of each other, and Amity saw the wonder that was plastered across her own expression mirrored in that of her creation. Amity grinned. She had missed these big, sloppy monsters so damn much.

She pulled her hand back and her purple reflection did the same. Amity experimentally waved her arms around her head, and again her abomination matched her movement. She let out a thoughtful hum. This was a new kind of abomination magic. Probably the result of her positive casting. Maybe she could use this somehow. There was an exhibition at school tomorrow for the Emperor's Coven inspector. She didn't necessarily want to parade her lookalike around Hexside, this kind of magic was still deeply personal to her. But maybe she could change its appearance while still keeping the reflective behavior. Slowly a plan began to form in her mind. 

"Abomination. Wait here for a second," she commanded her lookalike. It stayed stationary as Amity turned over to her window and undid the latch on the swinging pane. She pushed it open, and felt the wild evening air sweep into her room. Something about the woods at night always called to Amity, and this evening she was more than happy to oblige.

"Alright, here's what we're gonna do," she said, turning back to her companion, "Tomorrow, I'm going to volunteer for the magic exhibition at school for the Emperor's Coven inspector. Bump needs to impress her, and I can do that with your help. I've never heard of mirrored abominations before, so we can definitely make an impression." Amity started to pace in front of her creation, and it matched her step for step.

"If we do a good enough job, they'll give Bump more money. If Bump has enough cash, Mother and Father's donations won't be able to buy them as big of an influence at Hexside. Then, maybe I can leverage my success to get Bump to pass some motion with the board and get rid of them once and for all."

It was roundabout, slightly scheming, and depended a lot on her own ability to manipulate bureaucrats. More of a job for the twins than her, but Emira had basically told her outright she wouldn't do anything. It was up to Amity.

To Amity's surprise, the abomination stopped pacing and instead faced her again. It cocked its head at her, then pointed at itself, and made a motion at its face. The gesture was clear, it was worried about Amity showing it to other people. 

Amity nodded. "Yeah, I'm not ready for that. We can disguise you, but we need more abomination material. Luckily, I know where we can get a whole bunch of it. Follow me."

She threw her legs over the windowsill in tandem with her creation and they both dropped down from the second story window. At the last second, Amity whirled her finger in a spell circle and slowed their descent. They both landed silently on the front lawn below. Amity looked at the huge, imposing house in front of her and scanned the windows for lights. The whole house was dark, save for the glint of her open window swaying slightly in the breeze. They were clear.

Amity crept away from the house and quickly found her worn pathway into the forest, the abomination right on her heels. As it walked closer to her, Amity saw that the changes weren't just in the being's appearance, but in its behavior as well. She had been casting lookalikes and sculptures for a little over five months now. She'd made the breakthrough earlier in the school year and kept it largely to herself. Each time she had cast them with the taunts and insults of someone she knew, her abomination would be tense, coiled, almost ready to pounce on something. She had liked that at the time, it made her feel powerful and in control. Now, it seemed relaxed, at peace. It walked with ease, striding beside her as if on some leisurely errand. While Amity herself was more agitated due to recent events, she felt a small prickle of pride in her chest. She had really been working on herself lately. And it was nice to see a reminder of that progress.

They arrived at the clearing and Amity scanned the treeline as usual. No movement, nobody had followed them. She then turned her attention to the abomination which had drifted away from her and started to leer at the pile of purple, oozing mud she had been unable to clean up after the Covention. The remnants of her previous abominations, but still workable enough to be raw material for her new one. 

Amity cracked her the knuckles in her hands, and her abomination did the same. Amity closed her eyes and drew a big spell circle in front of her with both of her hands. She was reaching for abomination magic, but not in a way she had ever done before. She wanted to redirect the essence of the mud into her current creation. It was completely uncharted territory for her, but she felt confident. She had faced much worse challenges in the past few weeks. She could handle a little bit of advanced magic. 

She reached for her magic and found it bubbling near the surface of herself, almost itching to start. As she felt the thrilling sense of power and purpose wash over her again, she opened her eyes and addressed her abomination, which had begun to glow softly in the dark of the night.

"Lets get to work."

\---

It had been a good plan. A great plan, even. For all intents and purposes, it should have worked. Bump needed money, Covens had money, Amity could impress Covens. Done deal. Even her slightly crazy plan to funnel old abomination mud into her new doppelganger had worked out fine. The extra mud had covered up their resemblance, and made it look like just any old abomination. It had even fooled Luz earlier in the school day, when Amity gave her a high-five and her abomination accidentally smacked her in the face. She had set everything up perfectly to impress the inspector and enact stage one of her plan.

What she hadn't counted on, was the that the inspector was a basilisk and would try to consume half the school.

Amity sat in the nurse's office holding cup of ice chips, surrounded by her classmates who were in various stages of crying, puking, or napping. Only Amity was fully recovered from the monster's magical consumption, a fact which she attributed to her own recent experience with having her magic unceremoniously ripped away from her. As the school nurse walked by, she popped an ice chip in her mouth anyways. She may have her magic mostly back, but she still didn't need anyone else to think there was something different about her. Better to fly under the radar for now.

As she fiddled with the ice on her tongue, Amity considered her options. Her mirror abomination was gone, sadly. It had bravely charged the basilisk in her defense and then gotten eaten in one bite. That had made Amity wince at the time, she had been up half the night diligently working on it. But there would be other abominations, and Amity had bigger problems. Since the inspector had turned out to be a fake, that meant Bump wouldn't get anymore funds from the Emperor's Coven anytime soon. Her leverage was gone, and her plan was sunk.

Amity thought of Luz in the auditorium after she had helped take down the basilisk. How she fought off yet another deadly monster, then turned around and told off Bump for his one-track policy. Luz had been so excited when she got her uniform for all the tracks, and it had suited her perfectly. A mishmash of colors and magic, all bright and enthusiastic and bold. Luz _loved_ it here. She belonged here. Amity felt that warm fuzzy feeling in her head again. Amity couldn't give up yet. She had to try to convince Bump anyways.

As the nurse turned her attention away from Amity's side of the room, she quickly picked her way through her incapacitated classmates and snuck out the door. In the hallway, students were going about their day as normal. A basilisk attack had become just part of the regular happenings at Hexside, apparently. Amity nearly laughed aloud. It had been a wild month in Bonesborough recently, but then again when was it not?

Amity walked straight to Bump's office, but hesitated before she knocked on the door. Could she do this? She had failed time and time again recently, and this time she had no room for error. Luz's future depended on her being able to get that crotchety old guy to _do_ something for once. Amity shook her head. She couldn't worry about the stakes now. She just had to try.

She knocked twice and heard Bump's voice call from within. "Come in!"

Amity opened the door and stepped into the familiar office. It was full of bookshelves and magical artifacts, with various Hexside memorabilia squirreled away in corners. Amity could see the Choosy Hat in its locked box, the Grom crown on its pedestal, and even the Top Student badge laying on the front of Bump's large, cluttered desk. Bump was seated at the desk, sorting through budget scrolls but he looked up in surprise at her.

"Amity Blight! Shouldn't you still be in the nurse's office?"

"Oh, I'm feeling much better. I always bounce back fast," she said, maybe a little too quickly.

"Fair enough, you Blights are always made of some stern stuff," Bump said amicably. He gestured at the small seat in front of the desk, "Sit down! How can I help you?"

Amity crossed the gap to the desk, but didn't sit. 

"I need a favor," she said.

Bump looked at her in confusion. "What kind of favor?"

Amity hesitated. She had no idea how to put this delicately. "I understand that my parents have a certain amount of... influence over enrollment at Hexside."

Bump's shoulders tensed. He set down the budget scrolls and folded his hands on the desk.

"Miss Blight," he said carefully, "parents are typically uninvolved in their children's education at Hexside outside of regular performance reports and sporting events. To allow them to meddle in school affairs would to invite unwanted favoritism and bias in the education of our students."

Amity resisted the urge to roll her eyes. It was like he was reciting something off the introductory pamphlet.

"Principal Bump. Don't lie to me. We both know my parents are very involved at Hexside, regardless of what school policy may say."

At that, Bump lost his friendly demeanor. His eyes hardened and his posture stiffened, Amity could plainly see she had said the wrong thing.

"If your family is asking for more influence over things here, then I'm sorry but that's a step too far. I can usually deal with the personal hubris of well-connected adults, but not if they send their own children as stooges for their schemes!" Bump stood abruptly and pointed to the door. "Get out of my office!" 

"Wait!" said Amity, "I'm not here for my parents! I'm here for me. I'm asking you to cut them off."

Bump balked. " _What_?"

Amity took a deep breath. She had to play this delicately. "Please pass a resolution with the board. Make sure no parents can have any sway over individual student enrollment at the school. I know you hate how they meddle, I know you can propose new rules, and I know the board respects you enough to enact them."

Bump sat back down and scratched his head, or rather, he scratched the head of the demon who was devouring his head. "Miss Blight, if we're speaking honestly here, why on Titan would I do that? Your parents help secure a substantial amount of the school's endowment. If I go out of my way to remove their influence at the school, I would be putting the whole institution at risk."

Amity was afraid of this. The tendrils of her parent's dealings ran deep at Hexside. It was a much safer option for Bump to simply turn a blind eye to their small amassment of power than to fight it outright. She had to offer him something else.

"Then make the resolution generic," she said quickly, "A vague statement about protecting against nepotism or favoritism. My parents can hardly object to that."

Bump hesitated. "Its still too risky. I'm sorry Miss Blight but I don't think I can help you. I hate how your parents interfere here as much as you seem to, but my hands have been tied."

Amity cursed inwardly. Still, she was asking too much of him. He hadn't gotten this far as an administrator by sticking his neck out for every hopeless cause that walked in his office. Amity had to push harder. An idea popped into her mind. It was risky, but it might work. 

"That's a shame, Principal Bump." Amity said, pretending to examine her black nail polish, "Because as you mentioned before, my parents contribute a substantial amount of the school's funding. In fact, they contribute thirty percent of it each year. I know, because they told me to see it as an investment into my personal education."

Amity lifted her gaze from her hand and met Bump with a determined glare. 

"Imagine their outrage if I start flunking all my classes."

Bump scoffed. "You must be joking."

Amity lowered her hand and placed it on Bump's desk, shifting all her weight forward to get right into the old man's face. "Oh, I wish I was. Because as you know, my parents have very high expectations. And if I, the year's Top Student at Hexside, ex-Captain of the Grudgby Squad, premier student of the Abomination Track, find the grades and instruction I'm receiving to be unsatisfactory, well then I'm sure my parents will have some important financial decisions to make about their children's education."

Bump narrowed his eyes at her. Amity held his gaze, daring him to make the next move. Bump reclined in his chair and made a dismissive wave in her direction.

"I know you Blights. While you in the younger generation may have more of a tendency to troublemaking, I still don't believe you'd tank your whole future just for the sake of some family drama."

"Oh, really?" Amity picked up the Top Student badge from Bump's desk and rubbed it between her thumb and forefinger. She wasn't sure what her future held for her anymore. She thought of everything she gave up these past years for the sake of achievement: the friendships she'd ruined, the long hours of studying, the twisting of her magical powers, and the steep emotional toll on herself. Years of discipline, intensity, mercilessness. She wasn't that person anymore. She wouldn't toil away for someone else's gain. And she couldn't stand by while her parents arranged people she cared about like pawns on some wicked chessboard.

Amity reached for a trickle of magic and funneled it into the small circle her thumb had made on the badge. The circle, then the badge itself began to glow a dangerous, angry violet before detonating into a fireball in her hand. Tongues of flame tangled themselves over the smooth, shiny exterior of the badge, quickly smoldering the cheap material. She raised the remnants of the badge up into Bump's eyeline, then clenched her fist, crushing the blackened badge in her incinerating grip. It's ashes fell to the floor in front of her. He didn't think she would go through with it, huh?

"Just watch me."

She set her jaw and stared down Bump, whose mouth was agape at her display. She felt her heart thunder in her chest as moments of silence stretched between the two of them. She felt herself sweating from the tension, but she sensed a similar hesitation in Bump. She could almost see the older man running calculations in his head, like he was balancing one big school expense sheet. What was the cost of Amity's threat? Could it match the uphill battle of disentangling her parents from Hexside? She saw his eyes flicker back to her flaming fist, and a slow smile spread across his face.

"Alright, I know when I'm outmatched. Textbook blackmail and intimidation. If I weren't on the receiving end of it, I'd be very proud of you, Miss Blight. I'll do it."

Amity dismissed the fire and had to fight the urge to punch the air. Luz was safe! She could stay at Hexside! They could have classes together and maybe hang out after school and -

"On one condition," Bump added, interrupting her runaway thoughts, "You need to promise me something."

Amity had to reel her mind back in. Apparently, they were still negotiating. What Amity could offer to Bump, she had no idea. Aside from the occasional henchman from the Emperor's Coven to impress, Amity had little to contribute to running a school. She narrowed her eyes at the crafty teacher.

"Name it," she said.

"Not yet," he countered.

Amity crossed her arms, hoping to make herself look tougher than she felt. "This doesn't work like that, Bump."

"I'm afraid it does," he said, "You're asking me to run afoul of your parents, which puts the whole school's relationship with the Emperor's Coven in jeopardy. Thats an incredibly costly transaction and there's nothing you can do right now to make up for that deficit. So, what I'm asking for is a blank check. A favor sometime in the future. Nothing too serious, but enough to make this worth my while. You're an incredibly talented witch for your age. That makes you a powerful ally."

Amity gritted her teeth. She didn't like this new twist one bit. Adults having unilateral power over her choices was what had gotten her into this mess. But it was her only shot at getting her parents away from Luz, so she had to take it.

"Fine," she said after a beat, "A blank check. It's a deal."

Bump tipped his head forward in polite agreement. "I'll start making some calls." He waved a hand over his crystal ball and started to scroll through the school directory. Amity took that as her cue to leave. She was halfway through the door when Bump called after her.

"Miss Blight?"

She turned. The old principal had a mischievous twinkle in his eye. 

"For what its worth, I've been waiting to do this for years."

\---

Hours later, Amity was hanging out in the living room of Blight Manor with her siblings. Their parents had gone out to dinner with some of Father's work friends, probably Boscha and Skaara's parents, so they had the house to themselves. Ostensibly, they were all working on homework, like Amity was currently trying to do. But Emira had quickly put down her illusion essay in favor of scrolling through Penstagram on the couch, and Ed was brewing a dubious, green potion on the floor that definitely did not smell like homework. Amity also wasn't particularly focused this evening, she kept trying to puzzle out the abomination theorem set on the parchment in front of her but her heart just wasn't in it. She was worried about her parents finding out the stunt she had pulled earlier with Bump, or if Bump had decided to rat her out and go back on their deal. What she had done was insanely risky, but at the time she hadn't been able to think of any other option.

Her scroll's notification bell went off, interrupting her worrying. Amity waved a hand and the enchanted paper appeared out of thin air in front of her, showing she had a new private message. She opened it, and saw a return address for a restricted Hexside account, and a short but succinct note: 

"Board set to meet in 3 days on resolution, should pass without issue. Don't forget your end of the deal."

Amity felt relief wash over her at the news. She looked up at her siblings, still engrossed in their various distractions. She cleared her throat. "I have something I wanna tell you guys."

Emira didn't even look up from her scroll. "We already know you're gay, Mittens."

Amity sputtered. Of all the responses she had expected from Emira, that was not one of them.

"Hey!" said Ed indignantly, "Maybe she didn't know she's gay!"

Emira rolled her eyes. "How can she not know she's gay if shes's trying to tell us she's gay?"

Amity pinched the bridge of her nose, resisting the urge to magic their mouths shut. "Look, I know I'm a lesbian, but thats not the point!"

Emira huffed and threw her scroll to the side. "What's the point if not lesbianism? Seems like an ideal goal for me."

"You should quit making gay jokes, Emira," pointed out Ed, "Its not a great look, considering you are one."

Emira cocked her head and gave Ed a look of fake outrage. "Well if I'm a gay joke then what does that make _you_ , Edric?"

Ed winked. "A roguishly handsome asexual."

Amity groaned. Once they started bickering like this, there would be no wrangling them back to the topic at hand. Amity just had to derail them.

"I got Bump to propose a resolution with the school board to ban parent influence in student enrollment," she said loudly, cutting off the beginning of Emira's next insult. A beat of silence passed as the twins whipped their heads around to look at her in shock.

"Holy shit," Emira breathed, sitting up on the couch.

"You what?" burst out Ed.

Amity smirked and leaned back in her armchair. "It passes in three days. So by Grom, Mother and Father can't meddle at Hexside anymore."

"How on Titan did you make that happen?" asked Ed.

Amity grinned. "I took a page out of Emira's book and figured out that Bump was my best bet to go toe to toe with our parents. And then I took a page out of my own book to convince him to do it." Amity drew a spell circle and summoned a tiny ball of fire in her palm. "I'm abomination track, remember? A little brute force never hurt anybody."

Ed laughed. "That is terrifyingly false, but holy shit Amity, you're a badass!"

Emira had been silent the whole time, her eyes wide. But now a huge smile broke out across her face.

"Oh my Gods. Oh my Gods! I gotta go call Viney!" She scrambled up from the couch and began to run out of the room.

Ed grabbed her leg from his spot on the floor, stopping her in her tracks. Shock was written across his face. "Woah, wait!? You guys are still talking?! After everything that happened? After everything I said to her?"

For the second time in two days, Amity saw her calm, cool, collected older sister completely lose it. Emira burst into tears of joy. "Viney never believed it!" she choked out.

The words tumbled quickly out of her mouth, like she couldn't keep them in a minute longer. "She cornered me at school after you talked to her. Of course she was totally pissed, but once she found out about Dad's ultimatum she refused to let me deal with it alone. We've been going out in secret ever since. Now let me go call my girlfriend right this second, Edric, or I will vaporize you!"

Ed released her and Emira raced out of the room. Ed shook his head and yelled after her. "We're gonna have a long talk about this later, you jerk!"

"Love you too!" Emira called, already halfway up the stairs. 

Ed turned back to Amity, still shaking his head in disbelief. "I can't believe she never told me. You two are just full of surprises lately."

Amity raised an eyebrow at him. "Hey, have you looked in a mirror? The amount of time you've spent scheming lately has been suspiciously low."  
Ed laughed and got up off the floor, walking over to ruffle her hair affectionately. "I've had more important things to work on." 

Amity yanked his hand away from her head. "Well, consider us even now."

Ed looked at her in confusion. "You don't owe us anything. We would've helped you, deal or no deal."

"Are you so sure?" Amity asked. "Emira made it sound like the two of you just avoid conflict altogether half the time."

Ed sighed. "Emira is... complicated. What she says she and what she believes are two different things. I think thats how she stays sane half the time."

Amity snorted. "Thats a hell of a coping mechanism."

Ed bumped her shoulder with his own. "Bold words coming from someone who apparently threatened a teacher today."

Amity bumped him back with a grin. "It was an empty threat! How was I supposed to know he'd take it so seriously?"

"Did Bump want anything from you?" Ed asked, "I can't imagine he would just roll over right away."

Amity looked at the ground. "I don't know yet. He wanted a favor in the future. A 'blank check' he said."

Ed leaned back against the side of the chair. "It probably won't be that bad. He's always been fair to Em and I when we get in trouble. It shouldn't be anything you can't handle."

A few moments of silence passed between the two of them. Amity felt her brother shift on the arm of the chair and knew he had something more to say. 

"Spit it out, Ed." She said with a flat look.

"So..." he began casually, "all this for one lousy human, huh?"

Amity stiffened. "All this for our _friend_ , Ed."

He gave her a knowing look. "A friend? Is that all?"

Amity looked away from him and began fiddling with the page of her abandoned abominations homework. Luz _was_ her friend. But no, that wasn't all. Amity... liked Luz. More than the normal friend amount. Way more than the normal friend amount. Enough to threaten to blow up her future over. And that terrified her, because she hadn't felt this way ever before. Not about Boscha. Not about Willow. Only Luz. Amity felt her face burn red.

"Aaaaaaaand there's the blush!" Ed announced.

Amity punched him in the shoulder. "If you say a word of this to anyone, I will also vaporize you, Edric."

"My lips are sealed," Ed laughed. "But I would be careful around Hexside for a bit. Until your resolution goes through, Mom and Dad are still way too involved with this."

Amity rolled her eyes. "I'm always careful, Ed. Just like Emira said, I'll be the perfect little Blight. No human friends, no weak witchlings. I know the drill."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter was absolutely the hardest for me to write so far. For whatever reason, I had serious writer's block trying to figure out how to make it all flow together, and as a result I don't think this is my best work. HOWEVER, I had an absolute blast writing Amity's confrontation with Bump. One of the things that I think gets lost a lot in fanon is that Amity is a bit of a jerk. She knows her family's reputation and she knows her own capabilities and tends to wield them like a battering ram at people. We usually only see this in small ways like as she's bullying Willow, challenging Luz to a duel, or just lashing out at others. In this fic, I really wanted to give her some opportunity to go all out on something without hesitation. First, it was just beating herself up in Chapter 1. Now, as she's grown a bit, I wanted her to bring some of that Blight venom to a different confrontation, where she's trying to help instead of hurt someone. I don't think Amity will ever truly be a character with none of that bite to her, but I think as the season rolls on, she definitely channels it in different ways and grows because of it. So while she's still a bit of a jerk, I wanted to give her an opportunity to really bring it. 
> 
> And it just so happens that if you threaten Amity's crush, she'll try to obliterate you :)
> 
> Thanks for reading!


	7. Bridges: Built and Burnt (Between 1.15 and 1.16)

It had only been two days since Bump had begun the process of disentangling the Blight parents from Hexside, and already Amity had nearly sent her own plans up in smoke three separate times. Admittedly, they were all related to the same incident, but it still left Amity unnerved and slightly panicked. She had stuck her neck out so far this time, that if there was one slip up, any mistake at all, she knew that there would be no precedent for the hellfire that would rain down on her. And on Luz.

So naturally, when Skara had started needling her about her history with Willow, she needed to shut her down. Amity had felt bad doing it, Skara wasn't exactly a mean witch. She was just someone else caught up in Boscha's gravity well. They had gotten along alright over the years, but Amity had no room for error now. She felt that old, icy venom in her veins when she had lashed out at Skara, but it did the trick. She dropped the subject. Crisis number one, averted.

Unfortunately, that had set the tone for her day and introduced crisis number two: the picture. Amity had _known_ it was memory day in Photo class and she had _known_ Willow would be there, but she hadn't stopped to anticipate what that would mean. Stupid. 

She had just barely distracted Boscha from the incriminating photo before she slipped into the classroom. Boscha was hovering around her constantly now. It was weird, after two weeks of strained cold war tactics she had just warmed up all of a sudden. She was pretending like she had never seen Amity fail to cast that abomination, like she hadn't spent days obliquely referencing it at school. Amity really never knew what to make of Boscha, but now she especially had no clue what was going on with her. Regardless, she knew how to distract her with the thoughts of cute spectral entities and had gotten into the classroom with her reputation intact.

Looking at that photo had been hard. But burning it was worse. As she lit her index finger on fire, Amity knew she was rubbing salt in a wound, for herself and for Willow. But the past was dead and buried, and Amity was trying to protect someone she knew they both cared about. The picture had smoldered lightly and Amity thought that would be the end of it. But of course, that was hardly the case. 

Amity had turned to leave, feeling her chest burn with the shame of what she had done. Then, she had heard the crackling of the actual fire behind her. She whipped around to face the inferno of her misdeeds. When Luz had finally gotten there, Amity had barely managed to save a few pictures from the hungry, malevolent fire of her own making. 

So. Crisis number two was an ongoing problem. Which had inadvertently caused crisis number three, her trip to the Owl House. It had been weird, but strangely nice there. It was shabby and messy, but well-loved. A far cry from Blight Manor. Amity wished she had been there under better circumstances, and certainly not at a time when Luz could still be kicked out of the school by some spiteful Blight interference. However, Amity had recently set her friend's whole brain on fire so she really couldn't be choosy about her circumstances. She had hesitated to venture into Willow's mind with Luz, but eventually relented. She had screwed up. Again. But, now she knew that when she failed, she had a responsibility to fix it. So, she did. 

They reassembled beachside forts, childhood swing sets, roller coaster signs, even an ocean of undulating eggs. That last one had been hard to explain. But, it had felt so simple, so easy to just work in tandem with Luz. She was unendingly upbeat, constantly empathetic, and full of enthusiasm for literally everything magic-related. Despite the circumstances, Amity felt herself relax for the first time in days. She felt safe around Luz. Luz had endured her worst impulses time and time again, and yet still stuck around, making Amity repeat cute phrases like "We can fix this, together."

Amity wanted to get that tattooed on her brain.

They had just hit their stride fixing memories when the inevitable had happened again. There was one final memory left to fix, and it was the one Amity had been avoiding. She knew it would be ugly, she just didn't remember how bad. When Luz had pushed her, that old dread and panic rose to the surface again. Ice flowed into her veins and Amity had snapped at her, leveling false accusations at the goofy, bright girl in front of her like they would protect her from the truth. Amity wasn't proud of that. But, she had been terrified. What would Luz think of her when she saw her lowest point? Would Luz even want to be around someone like Amity? A Blight, through and through?

Before Amity could process the hurt in Luz's eyes, they had been interrupted by more of Amity's mistakes. The Inner Willow, ablaze with Amity's pink fire, had attacked, forcing them into the memory she had so desperately wanted to avoid. As Amity watched their younger selves reenact the fight that had set the stage for years of Willow's pain and torment, she felt her own subconsciousness overflowing into the memory. When Willow had threatened her, the dam had burst and the wrath of Mother and Father had drenched all of them in their venom. Amity was shell-shocked, but she knew what she had to do. She had to fix things with Willow. At that moment, she had reached out. And Willow reached back. And just like with the twins, she felt all the years between them fade into the background for a moment, and she felt like she was five years old again; oblivious to her obligations, and totally enamored with the companionship of a genuine friend for the first time.

When she left the Owl House, she and Luz still hadn't talked. They hadn't acknowledged what Amity had accused her of, or what she had done in the memory. The feeling of things left unsaid sat heavy in her stomach like a boulder, the weight begging to be released but nearly impossible to move.

All of this swirled in Amity's mind after school the next day. 

She had about thirty six hours before the resolution passed, so she was still walking on thin ice. But the Willow incident had shown her that she couldn't afford to keep playing into her parent's games any longer. She had nearly turned someone desperately important to her into a catatonic vegetable. Clearly, there was a problem with business as usual. So, she could break ranks and try to be herself a little early, right? What was so scary about that?

At least, that’s what she was telling herself as she tried to build up the nerve to go talk to Luz.

Luz was sitting at a picnic table with Gus and Willow out back behind the Grudgby field. The three of them were laughing and playing some kind of game that involved decks of cards, fast-paced dealing, and surprisingly, slapping the hell out of the table. Amity twisted her backpack strap in her hand. She wanted to go say hi, at least. Friends can do that, right? And she was friends with Luz. What did it matter if Luz now made her stomach flip and her palms go sweaty? Friends can be friendly while they think about how deep the other one's eyes are. There's nothing weird about that at all. Amity was perfectly in control of the situation and oh Gods oh no Luz was waving at her. 

"Hey Amity! You wanna play?" she shouted, waving at her with a fan made out of playing cards.

"Uh. Sure!" she replied, walking over to the picnic table like she hadn't just been standing there, immobile for thirty seconds before Luz had spotted her.

"Actually," said Willow, standing up as Amity approached, "Gus and I have to get going. I promised my Dads that we would help out with the vanishing weasel problem in our garden."

"Boooooo," taunted Luz. "If they're vanishing weasels then what’s the problem? Don't they just go away?"

Gus looked at her with a haunted stare. "The vanishing part isn't the problem, it’s where they reappear that causes the issue."

Amity nodded sagely. You don't mess around with vanishing weasels. But it did sting to see Willow try to leave just as she arrived. She knew they weren't quite friends again, but she had been hoping that maybe Willow could stand to be around her now, at least.

As if reading her mind, Willow turned to her. "Amity, maybe we'll catch you next time?" she said, her voice hesitating. Testing out the waters.

"Definitely," replied Amity. Willow gave her a brief smile before walking away with Gus, leaving her and Luz alone at the table.

Luz was grinning ear to ear as Amity sat down. 

"What?" she asked, trying to decipher why the human girl looked so happy all of a sudden.

"Nothing! Nothing!" said Luz, holding up her hands in a defensive gesture, "Just don't say shenanigans never did anything for you." 

Amity rolled her eyes in annoyance but her mouth broke out into a smile. "Just tell me what this crazy game is."

"You ever play slapjack?" asked Luz, starting to deal out two stacks of cards into the middle of the table.

"Nope," replied Amity, "But I'm assuming the name has something to do with why you guys were punching the table?"

"We were _slapping_ the table, thank you very much. But yeah, essentially we both have a stack of cards and we alternate flipping over the top card into this middle stack. If a jack pops up, you have to slap it. Last one to slap has to take the whole middle pile. The object of the game is to get rid of your cards as fast as possible," explained Luz.

Amity raised an eyebrow as she pulled her stack of cards towards her. "This seems kind of tame compared to Hexes Hold 'Em."

"Then why don't we make it more interesting?" asked Luz, that mischievous spark gleaming in her eyes.

Amity's breath hitched for a moment. "Um. What do you mean?" She had recently heard some wild stories from Ed and Emira about human variations of poker.

Luz grinned and slammed a glyph paper onto the table directly in front of her. The paper glowed and a long, arm-like vine burst out of the paper, stretching out to hover over the middle deck. "We use magic to slap!" she announced.

Amity breathed out in relief. That, she could handle. "In that case, let’s do it,” she grinned. 

“Abomination, Rise!" 

She twirled her fingers onto the tabletop in a practiced manner and a purple, goopy arm emerged, matching the plant's hovered position over the middle deck. Amity felt a now familiar flush of power and warmth hit her system. She felt more awake, more excited than she had a second ago. Amity looked at the arm she had summoned and flexed her fingers experimentally. The purple arm matched the gesture. She looked up at Luz with a confident smirk on her face.

"Oooh, mirrored Abominations," said Luz, her eyes hungrily taking in the new magic in front of her. 

"Yeah, I've been working on it recently. I see you have some new magic too, with those plant glyphs," said Amity, "I'm not sure how much it’s gonna help you win though, don't you still have to slap the glyph to get it to move?"

Luz scoffed and gestured at the distance between the glyph and the discard pile. "Well it’s a foot closer to me, so it makes my slap twice as fast!"

Amity laughed. "I don't know about that-"

"Also, I won the last four rounds in a row," Luz said with a playful quirk of her eyebrow. 

Amity narrowed her eyes. "You're on, Noceda."

\---

They had been playing for about twenty minutes and Amity was barely holding her own against Luz. The other girl's magical arm was lightning fast when it came to smacking the deck in front of her. Over and over again, the mass of vines would respond instantly to Luz's touch, shooting out and just barely beating Amity's abomination arm to the punch. Amity had to admit, she was impressed. The glyphs may take a while to set up, but they were more than a match for traditional spell circles. Her mirrored arm, by comparison, had a near-imperceptible lag to it. The only reason Amity wasn't being completely trounced by Luz was because she had to take the time to tap the glyph. 

"How are you so good at this?" Amity asked after Luz triumphantly slammed her last card on the table for the third time.

"Surprisingly, it can get pretty boring at the Owl House. King and I kill time doing this after Comedy Hour a couple times a week." Luz replied, raking the cards over to herself. 

"I meant the glyphwork, not the sad party games," said Amity.

"Oh! Well I practice glyphs for fun most nights. I've been working on size variations, line weight stuff, even some combined glyphs." Luz ticked off each new type of magic on her fingers. "The glyph here has thinner lines so it’s less powerful, but much quicker and more defined."

Sure enough, Amity leaned over to look at the glyph and the lines were delicate, but boldly drawn. Almost lithe and agile looking. 

"How did you figure out the mirroring thing?" asked Luz as she reshuffled the deck.

"Oh, just messing around. Nothing special." Amity replied quickly, waving her hand dismissively. "You wanna see something else that's cool?"

"Sure!" said Luz, oblivious to the abrupt subject change.

Amity dismissed the sloppy arm with a wave of her hand, and breathed deeply, trying to blank her mind. Then, she reached out and made a miniature spell circle in the air in front of her, consciously omitting the command phrase that nearly flew off her lips by sheer instinct. 

On the table, a matching tiny circle appeared and glowed bright. Luz's eyes widened and her face broke out into an enormous smile as a mini abomination clambered out of the circle and looked up at her, cocking its head curiously.

"Amity this is so cute OH MY GODS!" squealed Luz.

Amity smiled at her friend's adorable amusement. Who made it legal to have a grin that cute? 

As Amity fondly watched Luz reach out and poke at the abomination's tiny features, a thought occurred to her.

"Wait, you should be careful. Sometimes they bite people," she warned.

"Nah, me and Sludgie are gonna be great pals. I know he wouldn't hurt me." Luz replied, now reaching out to shake one of the abomination's hands with her fingers. Instead of reciprocating the shake, Sludgie reached out and hugged Luz's thumb.

Luz looked up at Amity with huge eyes and a gaping jaw. "Amity. This is _so_ cute. I'm gonna die."

Amity laughed. "I've never made one that's this friendly before. The last one tried to attack Ed. Well... actually I made it do that. But still! This is definitely a friendlier version."

Luz pulled back from the thumb hug and watched gleefully as the abomination stumbled around the tabletop, sending the cards scattering everywhere. It bumped into one of the decks before tripping and rolling towards Luz.

"Oh shoot, wait the glyph-" Amity said, reaching out to try to stop the abomination's momentum, but she was too late.

The abomination flopped directly onto the glyph, which started glowing with ominous lilac light. If she had been paying attention, Amity would have seen her abomination bubble and shift ominously before bursting at the seams with vines, flowers, leaves, and roots, transforming Sludgie into a tiny, horrific, horticultural novelty.

But Amity wasn't paying attention. Because her brain was exploding with thoughts that weren't her own.

Her eyes drifted shut as she felt a foreign wave of consciousness crash over her, plunging her deep into a trance-like state. Swirling in the tumbling depths, she felt the vague outlines of feelings that felt distinct from her own mind. They had a soft iridescent glow to them, shining like a disruptive, but gentle beacon in the ocean of her mind. She reached out for them.

At once, she felt contentment. Competition. Companionship. Each one was bright, and warm. Like a spring day well-spent outside in the sunshine. She felt them wash over her, gaining more definition as she waded into them. The barest impressions of words spun in and out of her mind in eddies, whisked away by the current almost as quickly as they had come.

"...I'm so glad I don't have homework tonight..."

"...her hair is so cute today..."

"...I wonder how it's going with those weasels..."

As quickly as Amity weathered the brunt of these foreign thoughts, she felt them slipping away almost immediately. The tides of her mind rushed back out, sweeping whatever the interference was back where it came from, out of the depths of her consciousness.

Luz's voice jarred her back into her body.

"Amity?" 

Amity started, her eyes refocusing onto the girl in front of her. Luz's expression was worried, her eyebrows furrowed with concern. She was holding Amity's shoulder and waving a hand in front of her face. Amity sat still, blinking hard. 

Well. That was new.

Amity opened her mouth to reply, but then closed it. She had been about to say: "You think my hair is cute?"

Luz leaned in further. "Hey, are you okay?"

"Yeah, I just... got hit with a wave of something," Amity replied slowly, trying to dispel cute hair thoughts. 

"What do you mean?" Luz asked, confused.

Amity hesitated "Uh,"

"You don't have to talk about it if you don't want to!" said Luz quickly, releasing her shoulder and pulling back slightly, "I know plant magic is a bit of a soft subject after yesterday-"

"No! Nothing like that," said Amity "I meant like I actually got hit with a wave of something right there. I um. I use my emotions to cast magic so I'm used to feeling things when I use a spell, but I've never gotten any kind of feedback like that before."

Luz's eyes went wide again and that goofy grin immediately popped back onto her face.

"You use your emotions to cast spells, you say?" she said in a ridiculous voice while wiggling her eyebrows and slowly reaching into her bag. In a flash she was holding a pen and notebook aloft, as if to take notes. "You've been holding out on me, Amity. I thought Sludgie was pretty cool but this sounds way cooler."

Amity laughed at her friend's enthusiasm. 

"Um. Yeah, it's not that common. Everyone feels a little something when they cast, but sometimes people use those feelings to fuel the spell. I've been doing it since I was a kid."

Luz’s face fell slightly. "Everyone feels something?"

Amity cocked her head. "Do you not... feel anything when you cast magic?"

"Nope, no bile sac, remember?" Luz pointed at her throat. "The only thing I feel when I use glyphs is whatever is in my head at the time."

"Huh," Amity replied intelligently. She could not relate.

"So, what’s it feel like?" asked Luz, leaning forward again.

Amity thought for a moment. "It’s like... It depends on the emotion."

She twisted her hands in her lap and refused to meet Luz's gaze. She took a deep breath before she started again. "If it’s something bad, like anxiety or fear, then the magic reacts to that and heightens it. It can feel like something dark and twisted, but forceful and unrelenting. Useful, but with a cost."

She looked up and Luz was staring at her, listening intently. She nodded briefly, inviting Amity to continue.

Amity swallowed. "Um. If it's positive though, it's way different. It's almost like..." she trailed off.

How could she describe what she felt when she cast magic now? How could she even articulate such a crazy, body and mind sensation? It was so fledgling and new. Warm and intimate. Personal, yet strangely shared. Her eyes met Luz's again, and suddenly she knew the words.

"It’s like you're being plunged into pure warmth. It radiates out and settles in your mind, everything clicks into place and the spell just ripples out into being. It’s inviting and comforting. Familiar but exciting all the same. It makes me feel like a conduit instead of a catalyst, if that makes sense?”

Luz was looking at her, entranced. Amity suddenly felt self-conscious. She was rambling. 

“Either way though,” she said quickly, “It feels insanely powerful."

Luz snorted.

Amity gave her a flat, annoyed look. "What?"

Luz gave Amity an exaggerated once-over, her eyes flicking up and down her form.

"I dunno, Amity. Pretty sure that's all you."

Amity felt her cheeks go pink and the tips of her ears twitch involuntarily. Was that a compliment? Do friends say stuff like that? Was that _flirting_? Amity had no idea what the protocol even was for this anymore. She was pretty sure the rule book had gone out the window when she had read her friend's mind and neglected to tell her because she was so flustered. Since when did she get this nervous? 

"O-oh. Um, thank you I don't-" Amity stuttered, but before she could finish whatever incomprehensible sentence she was attempting, Luz cut her off.

"Makes it a shame you still can't win at slapjack, though," she said, beginning to reshuffle the deck again.

Amity's mouth fell open in shock and narrowed her eyes at Luz, secretly relieved. Petty banter, this was familiar territory. 

"I've beaten you twice, don't get so cocky," she said, throwing the remainder of her cards at Luz.

Luz giggled. "Wow, sore loser much?"

"I'm not losing! I am _pre_ -winning," said Amity, now laughing herself, "I bet I can beat you this time around now that your special glyph is murdering Sludgie."

Luz glanced down at the now immobile abomination, overrun with plant matter and flower blossoms. "Poor guy. He had so much left to live for."

Amity nodded solemnly. "Yeah, he was actually my abomination homework for tomorrow. Could've stuck around long enough to get graded."

Luz smacked her forehead. "The abomination homework! I totally forgot."

Amity winced. "You _do_ realize we have a test tomorrow right?"

"No! No, I do not realize! Oh crap oh crap oh crap," Luz said, running a hand through her hair, "I gotta go home and study, but I'll see you around school tomorrow, right?" 

As Luz got up and started to scoop the cards back into her bag, Amity realized they hadn't even talked about what happened in Willow's mind yet. Luz had never brought it up, and Amity was so distracted she had completely forgotten.

"Wait, I just wanted to-"

Luz stopped shoving loose cards in her back and cocked her head at Amity, waiting for her to finish. But Amity hesitated. Did they really need to talk about it? Amity had just assumed Luz would want an explanation, some kind of recompense. But she seemed fine with Amity. Actually, she thought Amity's hair was cute. And powerful. Amity, not her hair. Was her hair powerful? 

Regardless, maybe Luz just understood. At the time, tensions had been high, Amity had been freaked out. She did something stupid, but she made up for it. Maybe things could go left unsaid for now. Maybe she didn't have to explain and repent every time she screwed up.

"Nevermind," she said, "Yeah, I'll see you at school tomorrow."

Luz gave her an easy smile. "In the meantime, don't go slapping any tables without me!"

Amity laughed again as she stood to gather her own things. "Only you would do something that weird, Luz."

Luz just shot her some finger guns and winked in response before turning to jog out of the courtyard. 

Amity felt herself blush again and fingered a strand of apparently cute loose hair by her temple. That girl was something else. She stood there, watching Luz jog away. Even when she was panicking over forgotten homework, she always had that spring in her step. Amity had no idea where Luz got her seemingly endless enthusiasm. Logic said it was probably a human thing, but Amity knew better. Whatever it was, it was all Luz.

She shook her head, and turned back to her backpack. She had gotten out a notebook at one point for Luz to sketch some glyphs on, and she was in the process of shoving it back inside when she heard footsteps.

"I see you got your magic back," said a familiar, sneering voice.

Amity froze. She had really been hoping to avoid this.

"I never lost it, Boscha," she lied, turning to face the witch behind her. 

Boscha was standing a few feet away with one hand tucked casually into her uniform pocket while the other was loosely holding a Grudgby ball to her waist. Her eyes were focused right on Amity, leveling her with a knowing look.

"We both know that’s not true," she said.

Amity felt that ice creep back into her veins. For once, she had a pretty nice afternoon. And now Boscha was here to ruin it. She was so sick of whatever this cold war was. Whatever the game the other witch was playing, Amity wasn't having it anymore. She stared back at Boscha, refusing to respond.

The silence stretched between them and Boscha started to bounce the ball at her side. It impacted the pavement once, twice, three times before Boscha palmed it again and walked towards Amity. The way she approached Amity was all lithe, confident movement, punctuated by that piercing stare. Amity stood her ground as Boscha circled closer to her, but she was unnerved. She had never been on the receiving end of that stare before. Until recently, she was always the one who employed it.

"So what was it then? The Wailing Star? That duel you got in at Covention?" Boscha asked, creeping closer. Her tone was casual but her body language was anything but.

Amity stayed put, returning the stare but trying to look as unperturbed as possible. She knew what would happen if she took the bait, and she wasn't going to fall for it.

Boscha tipped her head in mock curiosity when Amity didn’t respond. 

"No, it would take more than that to shake you, Blight. My money is on something, or _someone_ else."

Amity breathed deeply, trying to quell the anger rising up within her. Boscha's meaning was clear. But she couldn't take the bait, this was just what she wanted.

"None of your business," Amity replied evenly.

Boscha stepped directly in front of Amity and pouted. "Hey, I'm just trying to look out for you. You're awfully attached to that human. I heard you spent yesterday at that weird Owl House."

Don't take the bait.

"Yeah? So what if I did?" Amity replied, anger finally beginning to creep into her tone.

"What did you say yesterday? 'Blights only associate with a select few?'" Boscha took the ball in her hands and chucked it at Amity. Amity barely managed to catch the ball as it collided with her chest, forcing her to take a step back and cough.

"And yet you selected her, evidently," Boscha continued casually, like she hadn't just knocked all the air out of Amity's lungs. 

"Don't drag Luz into this when you _clearly_ have some kind of problem with me," Amity growled, throwing the ball back at Boscha with equal hostility.

Boscha caught the ball deftly and swung it around to sit back at her hip. "I'm just worried is all, seems like you're really putting a lot on the line here."

At that, Amity felt her pulse pound in her temple. Her previously relaxed posture turned rigid and her fists clenched at her sides.

"What," she said tonelessly. She wasn't asking a question. She was demanding an answer.

Boscha's eyes lit up. "You forget, our parents are always talking even if we're not. Someone blocked them over the human's enrollment. And I don't recall Bump ever having a spine, so it must have taken some outside influence."

Amity could hear the ghost of angry, pink fire roaring in her mind as Boscha looked at her with those three taunting eyes.

"Shut up," she snarled.

"I see I've struck a nerve," replied Boscha.

"Shut _up_!" Amity was moving before she even realized it. Her clenched fists had shot open to reveal rigid fingers, already twirling into spell circles. Boscha stumbled back and dropped the ball, but Amity barely noticed. She felt heat and rage envelop her mind as she instinctively shot magic into her fingertips. It felt like white hot lava coursing through her veins, withering the wells of power she had only just recaptured. The sensation burned through her system like a poison, spreading out from her chest until it clashed violently with her fingers. The spell circles sparked brightly with pink light, then collapsed, leaving Amity shocked and strangely exhausted.

Boscha was the first to react.

"What the hell is your problem?" she yelled, "Did you just try to cast on me?"

"You're trying to blackmail me!" Amity yelled back, shaking out her fingers. They felt leaden and dull, completely different from when she had been playing slapjack, not fifteen minutes earlier.

Boscha scoffed and threw up her hands. "I'm just pushing your buttons! Gods, Amity."

"You're just being an asshole, Boscha," she fired back. She felt sick, but she was way too fired up to be bothered by it.

"Oh like you've never done that before, little Miss Perfect?"

Amity laughed. The sound was high and cold, with no levity left in it. "No, you have a unique talent for being a complete bitch."

Boscha clenched her jaw, but didn't respond immediately. Her eyes were angry, but almost hungry. Searching for something.

"You know what I don't get about you?" she asked finally, her voice low and dangerous. "You act all high and mighty like you don't push people around the same way I do. Face it Amity, if the positions were reversed you would have pushed me too. All to gain any kind of edge and keep people in their place. Maybe I'm more open about it, but at least I don't scheme in the dark like you Blights. With me, people know what they're getting themselves into. With you, it's always a goddamn surprise."

Amity stepped right into Boscha's face. "Yeah, you're right. It's a surprise. Because why on Titan would I try to be as obviously pathetic as you are?"

They stared at each other for a few tense seconds, faces hovering only inches apart. The space between them felt charged, like the night air before a thunderstorm. Neither girl moved, both somehow understanding that whoever backed down first would lose the years-long competition that neither had anticipated was coming to an abrupt end. Boscha's three eyes leered at Amity, bold and daring and merciless. Amity returned the stare with equal venom. She was sick of this shit. Whatever Boscha was doing, it was some twisted way of trying to keep Amity close to her. Well, she was done. Now, Amity had someone to lose, whereas Boscha had already lost her. The pink fire raging in her mind abated to a dull roar as she remembered Luz. Willow. Ed. Emira. She didn't need Boscha anymore. She probably had never needed her in the first place.

Boscha blinked first. 

"You know what? Screw this."

She pushed past Amity and stooped to the ground, scooping up the discarded Grudgby ball. 

"I'm sick of your mind games."

Amity scoffed. "Oh, like the ones you just tried to play on me?" 

Boscha laughed humorlessly.

"What are friends for, Blight?" she spat, turning on her heel and flipping Amity off from over her shoulder.

Amity watched Boscha walk out of the courtyard, holding her body rigidly until she saw the other girl's pink hair recede back around the side of the school.

Then she ran over to the bushes and puked.

\---

When Amity got home that night, she felt like she had been chewed up and spit back out by a slitherbeast. Her whole body ached and her brain felt heavy. What the hell was she even doing anymore? She basically ran from one catastrophe to the next, screwing up Willow's brain and now trying to cast on Boscha. She was tired. She felt sick. She wanted Ed. Ed always made everything feel better. Even if he did poke fun at her in the process.

When Amity pulled open her front door and kicked off her boots, she heard a relatively unfamiliar noise in the Blight House. Arguing. She glanced out of the entryway, and saw that the door to her father's study was closed, but the light was on and shadows were moving underneath the doorway. The noise was muffled by the door, but she could make out uncharacteristically raised voices even if she wasn't close enough to hear the exact words. 

Amity sighed. She could guess what that was about. Probably best to avoid it.

She tiptoed up the steps, trying not to make any noise to give away her arrival. Once she was upstairs, she went straight for Ed's closed door. 

She knocked lightly. "Hey Ed? You in there?"

There was no reply, and she didn't want to knock any louder. Instead, she walked down the hallway to Emira's door, which was opened slightly. Amity rapped lightly above the doorknob and stepped into the doorway. Emira's room was immaculate as always. Books were tidily stacked in her shelves, her desk was carefully organized with color-coded quills, and the blankets on the bed were carefully tucked underneath perfectly arranged pillows. Emira lounged perpendicular to her headboard, one leg up on the bed and one dangling towards the floor, tapping away on her scroll. At Amity's knock, she barely glanced up at her.

"Hey," she said briefly before going back to her scroll.

"Where's Ed?" Amity asked.

"Downstairs, spying on the parents," Emira said, distractedly.

Amity furrowed her eyebrows. "Huh, I didn't see him down there."

Emira set down her scroll and sat up slightly to look at Amity. She dramatically rolled her eyes, which then glowed with light blue illusion energy. In a split second, Emira winked out of existence and her bed was empty.

"Illusions, Mittens," said Emira's disembodied voice, still coming from on top of the bed.

"Riiiiiight," sighed Amity, "You two can do that now. Did you seriously just use your eye roll to make a spell circle?"

Emira popped back into view on the bed with a self-satisfied smile. "Yes. Yes, I did. Now what's up? You look pale."

Amity hovered in the doorway, conflicted. She had wanted to talk to Ed, but maybe Emira could help her. She wasn't the most sympathetic of the two, but she had more experience with magic problems. 

Making up her mind, Amity crossed over to the bed and flopped down next to Emira.

"I completely screwed up my magic again," she said to the ceiling.

Emira propped herself up on one elbow to lean into Amity's field of vision. Her expression was neutral, but not uncaring. "Okay... what happened?"

Amity took a deep breath. "I was hanging out with Luz after school but when she left, Boscha showed up and started being all weird and aggressive, and I wasn't sure what she was trying to do but then she tried to _blackmail_ me about what's going on with our parents and I just lost it Em, I completely lost it! She mentioned Luz and the resolution and I wasn't thinking straight and I tried to throw a fireball at her but the spell collapsed and then she freaked out, and I freaked out, and then I threw up and now I'm here." 

Emira sat up fully. "Sloooooow dooooown, baby sister. So. Your spell failed?"

Amity sat up as well, rubbing her face in her hands. "Yeah, but that wasn't the worst part. It felt _bad_ , Emira. I could feel my magic drying up. The whole thing just felt _wrong_. I mean, Boscha sucks but I could've really hurt her! I wasn't even thinking about it, it was just my first instinct."

To Amity's surprise, Emira placed a hand on her knee. It was an oddly compassionate gesture from her big sister. 

"Well, clearly it wasn't your first instinct because you didn't do it," she said gently.

"What are you talking about? I spun up the spell circles and everything!" Amity exclaimed. She remembered how she felt in the moment, all rage and reflex. She had been halfway through the rotation before she even realized it was happening.

"You didn't fire it off though," pointed out Emira, "You couldn't."

Amity scoffed, "That’s just because my source failed."

Emira pulled her hand back, and leveled her with a bemused look. 

"Amity, what do you think your source is?"

Amity scratched her head. "It's... where my magic comes from?"

"It's _you_ , idiot!" Emira said, playfully shoving her shoulder, "Your source is a part of you! It's a magical analog to your whole essence. If your source changes, it's because you change. For most witches, they're not that in tune with it. It shifts and grows along with them, but they don't notice. For people like us, we notice the shifts, we fuel them. Our sense of identity is mixed with magic so much that we can _feel_ how it works."

Amity blinked. "I thought you didn't do that anymore."

"It's been coming back, recently," Emira shrugged, glancing down at her abandoned scroll.

Amity looked at the scroll and saw there was an open messaging window. Lots of little hearts and laughing emojis peppered the conversation. She put two and two together. 

"...Viney?" she asked.

"Viney," Emira agreed, "But back to you. If your spell failed, it's because whatever you were attempting was so opposed to your sense of self, that you physically couldn't make it happen. Your source kicked in as a fail-safe. Boscha probably pushed you somewhere you knew you didn't want to go, right? It's not your fault, Amity. You got played."

Amity groaned. Part of her really wished she had kicked Boscha's ass. But a larger part of her was relieved. She knew she had problems with self-restraint. Both with magic, and with words. Maybe a fail-safe wasn't a terrible thing, even if it did make her puke. There was still so much about this that she didn't understand, it was frustrating at times.

"Something else weird happened too," she said, a new thought occurring to her.

Emira raised an eyebrow. "Do tell."

"Before all that, one of my abominations stepped on Luz's plant glyph, and I think I read her mind for a second. Or at least, her emotions," Amity said warily.

Emira let out a low whistle. "Yeah, I have no idea how the hell that works. Anything interesting in there?" 

Emira leaned forward, clearly expecting something.

Amity paused. There was no way around this unless she wanted to mention the hair comment. Which she did _not_ want to do. Emira would tease her mercilessly about it. Better to go with Plan B.

"Luz was thinking about weasels," she finally admitted.

Emira fell onto her back and burst out laughing. Amity just rolled her eyes.

"Oh, man!" Emira said, wiping a tear from her eye, "You sure know how to pick 'em, Mittens!"

Amity picked up a pillow and whacked Emira with it, which just made her laugh harder. After a few more whacks, Emira threw her hands up in a weak defense.

"Fine! Fine! I'll stop," she said, mostly composed but still grinning with amusement.

Amity scoffed and put down the pillow. She tried to think of a witty response but she had nothing to say. Yes, she had a huge crush on a girl who thought about weasels. At the time, it had been topical! But she knew better than to try to convince Emira that.

They said nothing for a few more seconds as Emira slowly snickered herself out. Amity laid back down on the bed, staring at the ceiling again and ignoring her.

After a while, Emira grew quiet too. The silence wasn't uncomfortable, but Amity could feel her older sister wasn't done with her yet. Sure enough, Emira piped up once more.

"So. Grom is coming up," Emira said, phrasing it like a question.

Amity sighed. "Yeah."

"You gonna ask her?"

"I don't know..." Amity fidgeted. She had thought about it, yes. But after everything with Willow and Boscha, she wasn't sure anymore.

"What if she says no? What if I'm not good enough for her?" she blurted out. 

Emira got up off the bed and walked over to the desk, reaching into one of the drawers for something. "Alright. First of all, if she says you're not good enough for her, she won't have to think about weasels anymore because I'll turn her punk ass into one." 

Emira pulled something out of the drawer and shut it, moving to return to the bed. "And second," she continued, punctuating the phrase by dropping a pink notepad and pen right onto Amity's stomach.

"You'll never know if you don't try."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> WOW so things have happened since my last update. I got unceremoniously baptized by fire into The Owl House fandom at large on discord, which has been simultaneously terrifying and thrilling. An enormous shout out to everyone who's taken the time to chat with me or respond to my comments on their fics in the past two weeks; you are all such fun, smart, and creative people and it's been so dope to get to know everyone. 
> 
> Besides that, I have good news and bad news for everyone. Bad news is I have to write chapter 8 and 9 at the same time, so this next update will also take a hot second to come out. Good news is, they'll drop relatively quickly once they're done, with maybe a three day window between them. 
> 
> As far as comments on this chapter, I think I summed it up pretty well when I told one of my beta readers "my trick for character development is to just have no semblance of a coherent theme anymore. Amity will learn as many life lessons as humanly possible in nine chapters and she will have a miserable time doing it."
> 
> Thanks for reading!


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